TLDR - I got my hands on a cold oxygen plasma generator for preventing biofilm in ice machines; could it help food last longer in my fridge or will it mess up my food?
I’m a refrigeration mechanic and recently while decommisioning some old ice machines I found one with a functional Luminice II module in it which I snagged. Generally nobody in my area orders icemachines with this optional module. With our water quality limescale becomes an issue and necessitates cleaning far far more quickly than biofilm so they generally aren’t worthwhile here. So I have no experience with these modules.
From what I understand they use a UVC bulb to generate cold oxygen plasma which is then pumped through the ice machine to kill bacteria. At least from what I’ve heard they work really well. I’ve been trying to think of places I could use it and it occured to me that I could pump cold oxygen plasma through my fridge to kill any microbes in there and therefore potentially make my food last longer in there. At the same time though, food is also often made of cells so I’m not sure what effect cold oxygen plasma would have on my food long term. Maybe I would just be turning my fridge into an instant produce spoiling machine.
This isn’t really an issue that needs to be solved but I like tinkering and it would be cool to have a self sanitizing fridge. Is this a bad idea?
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
MaybeI’m wrong but I think you might oxidize all your produce faster. I do think you should try though.
kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
Especially because, if this is the device I think it is, it’s an ozone generator, which are even more oxidizing than the normal O^2.
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
That’s what I thought they were at first too but aparently there is a difference. A cold oxygen plasma generator does produce ozone but aparently it also does other stuff. I’m not sure on the exact science but it isn’t just an ozone generator.
Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
That’s what I’m kind of wondering. Maybe I should try it out with my minifridge first.
bizzle@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Seems like a low risk way to make sure
Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 hours ago
Yes, this. You can. But you probably shouldn’t.