The effect of high-dose-rate X-rays on E-coli O157 : H7 in ground beef

The emergence of pathogens in today's world has increased the need for nea, portable, nonthermal sterilization technologies, The University of Missour i, Columbia in cooperation with the Institute of Electrophysics, Ekaterinbu rg, Russia, have built and tested a new accelerator based on solid-state op ening switches for the disinfection of pathogens in food. The accelerator u tilizes a new solid-state opening switch to generate 40-ns, 200-keV electro n beam pulses, These pulses were then converted to Bremsstrahlung X-rays us ing an integral X-ray converter. The efficacy of treating E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef was tested by irrad iating frozen ground beef with the high-dose-rate 10(7-8) rads/s X-ray puls es. Comparison studies were also done with a Cobalt-60 source located at th e Missouri University Research Reactor. The results of the study are presen ted in this paper.