On the charged aerosols generated by atmospheric pressure non‐equilibrium plasma

Abstract

Recently, charged aerosols are used widely in many applications, such as fog elimination, inactivation of airborne viruses and so on. Atmospheric pressure nonequilibrium plasma (APNP) have become an efficient way to generate charged aerosols. Except the traditional pin-plate or wire-plate APNP sources, the new APNP sources such as large scale corona discharge system and air plasma jet array are introduced. These sources can increase the ion density in open air and generate adjustable large plasma plume, which are helpful in increasing the charging efficiency on aerosols. Although the interactions between plasma and aerosols is quite complicated, the preliminary study suggests that the diffusion charging dominates aerosols below 0.1 μm, field charging dominates aerosols larger than 1 μm, and the photo charging also contributes to aerosols charging. These reactive charged aerosols have shown their potential in the artificial rain enhancement, biomedicine, and material processing. Finally, challenges and opportunities for theoretical, experimental, and application research in related cross-disciplinary areas are presented to stimulate critical discussions and collaborations in the future. Yanzhe Zhang and He Cheng contributed equally to this work. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Deposition of charged aerosols by E × B enhanced low‐temperature plasma jet array

“…More ions generated by E × B enhancement (Figure 8）and the subsequent higher collision rate between charged aerosols and neutral aerosols resulted in a faster increase in aerosol density (larger than 1 μm), as shown in Figure 10d. [ 8,15,36,37 ]…”

“…The negligible difference between plasma only case and B enhancement case is attributed to the limited increase of ion B enhancement, whereas the deposition of the E × B enhancement group was 24% more than that of the B enhancement and 108% more than the natural deposition, which confirms the contribution of higher ion density and the subsequent higher collision rate of charged aerosols generated by E × B enhancement. [ 8,15,35–37 ]…”

“…Since the past 20 years, high potentials have been shown from research on low‐temperature plasmas and their applications in the environment, surface treatment, and biomedical field. [ 1–8 ] The advantage of low‐temperature plasma over traditional treatment are the relatively high efficiency, flexibility, low cost, and environment friendly. [ 8,9 ]…”

“…[ 1–8 ] The advantage of low‐temperature plasma over traditional treatment are the relatively high efficiency, flexibility, low cost, and environment friendly. [ 8,9 ]…”

Enhanced transmembrane transport of reactive oxygen species by electroporation effect of plasma

“…Plasma sources can generate electric fields, with the intensity ranging from a few to 100 kV/cm, [ 8–15 ] which play an important role in the interactions between plasma and cells. [ 16–19 ] Electroporation happened when cells are exposed to the strong electric field of plasma, leading to the increase in cell membrane permeability and the appearance of hydrophilic pores.…”