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CapitalPress.com
Friday, July 22, 2022
Food researchers use plasma jets to target
biofi lms on food processing equipment
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
BOISE — New ways to remove
biofi lms could help food processors
save water, reduce system down-
time, and increase food and worker
safety.
Boise State University research-
ers Jim Browning and Ken Cornell
are making progress with plasma.
“If we can deploy plasma treat-
ment systems to kill or remove
contaminants, we can reduce
the need for water and chemi-
cal usage, and potentially reduce
cost while improving food safety,”
said Browning, associate profes-
sor of electrical and computer
engineering.
Food manufacturing, a major
industry in Idaho, uses substantial
water and will face more compe-
tition for it as the population and
industrial base grow, said Cornell, a
professor of biochemistry.
Familiar biofi lms include pond
scum, slick material on stream-bed
rocks, and tooth plaque.
But biofi lms “exist on almost
every surface around you,” Cor-
nell said. More than three-quarters
of microbes colonize in biofi lms as
opposed to living on their own.
“All of the food-processing sur-
faces that can come into contact
with food are going to develop bio-
Brad Carlson/Capital Press
Boise State University’s Jim Browning and Ken Cornell at their plasma array test setup.
fi lms,” he said. They show up on
tabletop surfaces, machines and
conveyor belts, and in pipelines.
Browning said bio fouling in
pipelines that deliver food products
like milk, juice and yogurt poses a
major challenge. Steam and water
fl ushes, and alkali and acid solu-
tions are used.
“In the liquid setting, there are
more challenges,” Cornell said.
Shutdown is required.
The scientists use cold atmo-
spheric pressure plasma and a
low-temperature, co-fi red ceramic.
Browning said the approach
can clear the vast majority of bio-
fi lm bacteria from surfaces includ-
ing stainless steel, glass and plastic.
Variables include biofi lm thick-
ness and total amount, though
processors work hard to avoid
buildups.
Cold atmospheric pressure
plasma is a partly ionized gas, with
charged particles, that can be gener-
ated at atmospheric pressure and low
or room temperature.
Co-fi red ceramic, which students
fabricate, can be made into geome-
tries that range from planar arrays
suited to fl at surfaces to radial arrays
that can go through a pipe.
Cornell said getting the plasma to
the target, such as biofi lms on a sur-
face, usually involves a carrier gas
that delivers the reactive species cre-
ated by the plasma device’s electric
discharge.
He said the devices can be
designed as “plasma jets” that dis-
charge an ionized gas plume or cone
beyond the device — like an acety-
lene torch, but not hot.
Another design keeps the dis-
charge within the device. Ionized
plasma species are ejected from the
device using a current of carrier gas,
similar to a compressed-air canister
for keyboard cleaning. The glow of
plasma discharge is not seen since it
is contained.
Cornell said a prototype radial
plasma device projects plasma out-
ward from within a pipe and func-
tions somewhat like a “plasma bot-
tle brush.”
“And we have shown we can do
this with compressed air as a feed
gas rather than argon or helium,”
he said. Compressed air is eas-
ier and cheaper to use, and more
sustainable.
Cornell said food processing is
better than ever but will come under
more resource pressure. Food-borne
illness, worker safety and economi-
cal, sustainable food production will
remain priorities.
“You can’t stand still,” Brown-
ing said.
The multi-year project has
grant funding from USDA, the
National Institutes of Health and
the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.
It is lab-based and currently
not part of a pilot project at a food
processor.
Robotic hives use artifi cial intelligence to help honey bees — and beekeepers
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
An Israeli startup called
Beewise
has
invented
robotic hives that use arti-
fi cial intelligence intended
to help beekeepers manage
pollinators and save honey
bee colonies from collapse.
Colony collapse is a
major problem. According
to USDA, U.S. beekeep-
ers on average lose 30% of
their managed honey bee
colonies annually. Threats to
honey bee survival include
the deformed wing virus,
varroa mites, drought, pes-
ticides and other pressures.
Beewise claims its new,
solar-powered technology,
called the “BeeHome,” can
help reduce colony losses
by detecting threats with
AI. Beewise claims its
hives experience 8% colony
loss compared to the 30%
average.
The BeeHome was
the brainchild of Eliyah
Radzyner, an Israeli bee-
keeper, who in 2017 was
“amazed” beekeepers were
still carrying around wooden
boxes for hives, which had
been the industry standard
since the 1800s.
He wondered: Wasn’t
there a better way?
Alongside
business
experts, researchers and
engineers, Radzyner started
Beewise.
A BeeHome is precisely
what it sounds like: a home
for bees. It’s a 12-square-me-
Courtesy of Saar Safra/Beewise
Saar Safra said it takes about three hours for a beekeeper to populate a BeeHome with hives.
Courtesy of Saar Safra/Beewise
A BeeHome in transit.
ter white box resembling a
shipping container with col-
orful slots through which
bees can enter and exit. Step
through the door designed
for a beekeeper and inside,
is a system of robots and AI
working to monitor and host
24 colonies — potentially
more than 1 million honey
bees.
Within the BeeHome,
video feeds continually mon-
itor bees, and AI analyzes
the footage, detecting pests,
pathogens, honey and brood
with about 99% accuracy.
The system can monitor 4.3
million cells: 6,000 cells in
a frame, 30 frames in a hive,
24 hives in a BeeHome.
“We know everything that
is going on in every single
cell in every single frame,”
said Saar Safra, Beewise’s
CEO and co-founder.
A beekeeper can watch
live hive footage remotely or
view AI-generated graphs on
hive health.
Safra said the BeeHome
has many advantages.
First, it can “raise red
fl ags” when something
undesirable, like a pest, is
detected.
Although the beekeeper
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15 Branches across 13 communities in the Willamette Valley
remains the strategist and
decision-maker, the Bee-
Home
contains
robot-
ics that Safra said can act
as the “hands and legs”
of a beekeeper who’s not
on site.
For example, the Bee-
Home’s robots can harvest
honey, heat-treat frames
to kill off varroa mites and
give bees food, water and
medication.
When pesticides are
sprayed, the BeeHome tem-
porarily closes its hatches to
protect the bees inside.
Beewise’s services are
designed for commercial
operations with 1,000 or
more hives.
Andony
Melathopou-
los, Oregon State Univer-
sity Extension Service’s
pollinator health specialist
and assistant professor, said
because Beewise is a young
company, he’s not yet famil-
iar with its technology, but
he said AI could potentially
be useful in the pollination
industry.
“New tools that use
machine learning have a lot
of potential to help increase
the health of honey bees and
lower production costs, par-
ticularly as labor costs con-
tinue to rise,” he said.
Melathopoulos said he
believes the strongest tech-
nologies will be those “where
companies include commer-
cial beekeepers at the devel-
opment phase.”
Safra said Beewise is
doing just that. Since the
company launched in 2018,
Beewise has been doing tri-
als and commercial work
with beekeepers worldwide,
including in Israel, Califor-
nia and Oregon.
The company started
small and is revving up.
Beewise is deploying about
1,000 BeeHomes in 2022
and plans to deploy 5,000
devices in 2023.
Beewise is backed by pri-
vate funding and has raised
$120 million to date from
investors.
BeeHomes are avail-
able commercially. The bee-
keeper pays a one-time
$2,000 delivery fee. From
that point on, the beekeeper
pays a subscription service at
$400 per month.
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