Atmospheric-pressure plasma sources: Prospective tools for plasma medicine

Abstract

Plasma-based treatment of chronic wounds or skin diseases as well as tissue engineering or tumor treatment is an extremely promising field. First practical studies are promising, and plasma medicine as an independent medical field is emerging worldwide. While during the last years the basics of sterilizing effects of plasmas were well studied, concepts of tailor-made plasma sources which meet the technical requirements of medical instrumentation are still less developed. Indeed, studies on the verification of selective antiseptic effects of plasmas are required, but the development of advanced plasma sources for biomedical applications and a profound knowledge of their physics, chemistry, and parameters must be contributed by physical research. Considering atmospheric-pressure plasma sources, the determination of discharge development and plasma parameters is a great challenge, due to the high complexity and limited diagnostic approaches. This contribution gives an overview on plasma sources for therapeutic applications in plasma medicine. Selected specific plasma sources that are used for the investigation of various biological effects are presented and discussed. Furthermore, the needs, prospects, and approaches for its characterization from the fundamental plasma physical point of view will be discussed.

Low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma sources for microbial decontamination

“…The inactivation of microorganisms and the removal of biological hazardous contaminants is generally of great interest not only for the conditioning of surgical instruments but also plays a substantial role in the entire field of life science (Moreau et al, 2008;Wan et al, 2009). This varies from microbicidal treatment of food or food containing enclosures, the prevention or cure of infectious diseases, the bleaching of teeth, the treatment of finger nails for improved adhesion, the installation of appropriate hygiene strategies, the sterilization of spacecrafts up to the use of plasmas sources for medical applications like wound disinfection or stimulus for wound healing Weltmann et al, 2008a;Lee et al, 2010;Cooper et al, 2007;Kaemling et al, 2005;Weltmann et al, 2010). Nevertheless, the sterilization of medical devices is still a main topic.…”

Non-thermal plasma based decomposition of volatile organic compounds in industrial exhaust gases

“…The current was measured by reading the voltage drop over a shunt (R = 50 X). By multiplying the averaged signals and dividing with the resistance of the shunt, the power input into the plasma was calculated (Weltmann et al 2010). For the experiments in Poland, the reactor was energized with a high-efficiency, resonant power supply schematically shown in Fig.…”

Enhancement of Percutaneous Absorption on Skin by Plasma Drug Delivery Method

“…Plasma jets consist usually from a gas nozzle with one, two or three electrodes [70,71]. The plasma jet can be realised by two ways-active plasma jets (expanding plasma contains free and high energetic electrons) and remote plasma jets (plasma is potential free and consists of relaxing and recombining active species from inside the nozzle) [70].…”