The high-powered accelerator is a type of cathode ray tube, similar to that found in a conventional television set. Researchers at the University of Missouri have been working with researchers from Iowa State University and Natick Army Laboratory on the technology to destroy bacteria without significantly changing product composition, flavor or nutritional value. Unklesbay says they decided to work with E. coli because it is the nastiest bacteria. It can survive temperatures and acidic conditions that others cannot. The reason they are working with ground beef is because of the high incidence of contamination because of high surface area.
Ground beef tends to have the most chances of problems.
Our technology will kill the E. coli present without changing the meat in any other way, she adds. With the E-beam, a power source pumps 500,000 volts of electricity into a cathode ray tube, where an electromagnet forms the resulting electrons into a beam that passes through a vacuum to keep them in a straight line. A scanner directs the beam at food passing below on a conveyor belt. Shielding surrounds the machine to protect workers. When the electron beam hits E. coli, it disrupts their DNA, killing them in a fraction of a second.