The effect of gas additives on reactive species and bacterial inactivation by a helium plasma jet

Abstract

In this paper, the influences of gas doping (O2, N2, Air) on the concentrations of reactive species and bactericidal effects induced by a He plasma jet are studied. Firstly, results show that gas doping causes an increase in voltage and a decrease in current compared with the pure He discharge under the same discharge power, which might be attributed to the different chemical characteristics of O2 and N2 and verified by the changes in the gaseous reactive species shown in the optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Secondly, the concentrations of aqueous reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are tightly related to the addition of O2 and N2 into the working gas. The concentrations of aqueous and significantly increase while the concentrations of aqueous ROS decrease with the admixture of N2. The addition of O2 has little effect on the concentrations of and and pH values; however, the addition of O2 increases the concentration of and deceases the concentrations of H2O2 and OH. Finally, the results of bactericidal experiments demonstrate that the inactivation efficiency of the four types of plasma jets is He + O2 > He + Air > He > He + N2, which is in accordance with the changing trend of the concentration of aqueous Simultaneously to the better understanding of the formation and removal mechanisms of reactive species in the plasma–liquid interaction, these results also prove the effectiveness of regulating the concentrations of aqueous reactive species and the bacteria inactivation effects by gas doping.