Blue LEDs kill bacteria

A study conducted by a team of researchers, headed by Assistant Professor Yuk Hyun-Gyun and Dr Vinayak Ghate from the NUS Food Science and Technology Programme, has discovered that blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) can kill salmonella bacteria in unpasteurised orange juice.  Orange juice artificially contaminated with five strains of salmonella was illuminated by LEDs with light of 460 nanometres. Results showed that at different temperatures, the light could kill off most of the bacteria cells between four and 11 hours.

The findings for this study were published in the Journal of Food Protection in April.

Read the media article.