This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Rice bran is a plentiful agricultural byproduct that is often underused, but research from the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station shows it could be a source of biodegradable food packaging with built-in antibacterial properties. Antimicrobial resistance is a significant global health threat.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2.8 million antimicrobial-resistant infections occur each year in the United States alone. For the past year, with funding support from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, a multidisciplinary team of scientists led by Mahfuzur Rahman has explored how plasma technology could contribute to new antimicrobial strategies. The team is using plasma, a state of matter visible in natural phenomena such as the Northern Lights, to improve the value-added capabilities of rice bran and rice bran protein.
Rahman is an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science for the experiment station, the research arm of the U of A Division of Agriculture, and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the U of A. The research showed that treating a clear film made from rice bran protein with argon-generated cold plasma inhibited foodborne bacterial pathogens, including E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium known for its antibiotic resistance. The plasma treatment inhibits bacterial growth in two ways: It creates microscopic spikes on the film and triggers a chemical reaction that produces and releases hydrogen peroxide, a strong oxidizing agent with antimicrobial properties.
After exposure to the plasma-treated rice bran films, bacterial populations of all pathogens declined within eight hours and were inhibited from regrowing 24 hours after application. Conversely, untreated rice bran films showed marked bacterial growth, the study showed. Rahman said the research demonstrates that argon cold plasma offers a green, novel approach for transforming rice-processing byproducts into sustainable, functional materials.
"This idea actually came from the microchip industry," Rahman said. "They use the plasma for what's called etching to assemble semiconductor layers, and we transferred that idea to the rice bran films." For the study, researchers compared films made solely from rice bran with films made from rice bran protein. The rice bran protein film appeared to react more favorably, with more microscopic spikes, or etches, and higher hydrogen peroxide concentrations.
In the rice bran protein films, the plasma increased surface roughness 3.3-fold, compared with 1.06-fold in films using solely rice bran. While cold plasma was known to improve physical and chemical properties in synthetic polymer films, Rahman said its antibacterial effects in rice bran-based biopolymer films had not been previously reported. The team also examined how the treatment affected the films' physical properties, such as water vapor transmission rate, tensile strength and thermal stability.
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