The interaction between plasma filaments in dielectric barrier discharges and liquid covered wounds: electric fields delivered to model platelets and cells

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The treatment of wounds by atmospheric pressure plasmas in the context of plasma medicine typically proceeds through a liquid layer covering exposed cells. The wounds and their liquid covering often have irregular shapes with electrical properties (i.e. conductivity and permittivities) that may differ not only from wound-to-wound but also for a single wound as healing proceeds. The differing shapes and electrical properties extend into the liquid within the wound that typically contains cellular materials such as blood platelets. The plasma, wound, liquid and intra-liquid cellular components represent an interacting system of mutual dependence. In this paper, we discuss the results from a computational investigation of the treatment of small, liquid-covered wounds by filamentary dielectric barrier discharges. The sizes of the wounds are of the order of the plasma filaments and the liquid within the wound, an approximation of blood serum, contains idealized blood platelets. We find that the electrical properties of a wound can have significant effects on the spreading of the plasma on its surface by virtue of the deformation of the vacuum electric fields due to the shape, the effective capacitance of the wound and the discontinuities in electrical permittivity. This in turn effects the penetration of the electric field to cells under the liquid. The orientation and permittivity of the platelets relative to the liquid determines the electric fields that may stimulate the platelets.