Inactivation of Bioaerosols in Dentist Clinic by Carbon Nanotube Discharge Plasma

This work aimed to apply carbon nanotube discharge plasma system to explore the feasibility of inactivating bacterial bioaerosols in dentist clinic environments. A dentist clinic operating environment in a medical center had been chosen as the testing indoor environment. The nanotube carbon plasma device with operating voltages of 6.0 kV was used for evaluating the bioaerosol inactivating ability of this plasma system. The results showed that bacterial bioaerosol concentration in the test environment is 815–1,518 CFU/m³. When using the nanotube carbon discharge plasma system, the bacterial bioaerosol concentration would decrease 70% with 120 min system working. The overall space bioaerosol inactivating ability is about 70%. These results indicated that carbon nanotube discharge plasma system had the effective ability on airborne bacterial bioaerosols inactivating.