In this study, we used an argon-based round atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ) for enhancing wound healing in streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats. The APPJ was characterized by optical emission spectroscopy. We induced Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in rats with different amounts of STZ combined with normal and high-fat diets, respectively. The wound area ratio of all the plasma-treated normal and diabetic groups was greatly reduced (up to 30%) compared with that of the untreated groups during healing. Histological analysis revealed faster re-epithelialization, collagen deposition, less inflammation, and a complete skin structure in the plasma-treated groups was found as compared with the untreated control groups. In addition, the new blood vessels of plasma-treated tissues decreased more than untreated tissues in the middle (Day 14) and late (Day 21) stages of wound healing. The plasma-treated wounds demonstrated more transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) expression in the early stage (Day 7), whereas they decreased in the middle and late stages of wound healing. The levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and catalase (CAT) increased after plasma treatment. In addition, plasma-treated water had a higher concentration of hydrogen peroxide, nitrite and nitrate when the plasma treatment time was longer. In summary, the proposed argon APPJ based on the current study could be a potential tool for treating diabetic wounds.

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In this study, we developed a rat model of acute wound healing treated by a cold and touchable Ar/O 2 atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ) with a jet gas temperature of < 37°C and a length of 15 mm. To generate more abundant reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS), we added various amounts of oxygen into argon. We have found that, with 0.04% oxygen addition, the APPJ can generate the most abundant ROS/ RNS such as hydroxyl radicals (OH*), N 2 2nd+ , and O atom in the jet region based on the optical emission spectroscopymeasurements. We then applied the APPJ to treat open wounds of rats ated two wound sizes with diameters of 8 mm (small) and 21 mm (large). The results show that APPJ treatment with 0.04% oxygen addition can greatly accelerate wound healing, especially for the group with large wounds compared with the control group without any treatment. We explain this wound-healing enhancement with plasma jet treatment using a standard histologic experimental groups.

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Atmospheric pressure nitrogen‐based dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) jet with two‐step plasma treatment procedure has been verified to be very effective in facilitating nitrogen‐containing group incorporation on Polylactide (PLA) surface. It includes: 1) pretreatment plasma treatment by a nitrogen discharge with a trace amount of oxygen, and 2) ammonia plasma treatment by a nitrogen discharge with a small amount of ammonia. In this study, the optimized operation condition of two‐step plasma procedure is investigated under different concentrations of added gases (0–1% oxygen; 0–10% ammonia). XPS analysis shows that ∼0.19 of N/C ratio can be achieved by means of the optimized two‐step plasma procedures. Furthermore, a surface amination mechanism is proposed based on the observations of Optical Emission Spectra (OES), Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), and X‐ray Photoelectron Spectra (XPS) analyses.