A low cost, flexible atmospheric pressure plasma jet device with good antimicrobial efficiency

TL;DR

This study presents a low-cost, safe, and flexible atmospheric pressure plasma jet device that demonstrates effective antimicrobial properties at low operating frequencies, suitable for medical applications.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel, low-cost plasma jet device that meets safety standards and exhibits strong antimicrobial effects at lower frequencies than existing devices.

Findings

Device is safe for medical use with low leakage current and UV emission.

Gas temperature remains below 40°C, ensuring patient safety.

Achieves antimicrobial efficacy at frequencies below most reported devices.

Abstract

Plasma sources suitable to generate low temperature plasmas has been fundamental for the advances in plasma medicine. In this research field, plasma sources must comply with stringent conditions for clinical applications. The main requirement to be met is the patient and operator's safety and the ethical requirement of effectivity, which encompasses the electrical regulations, potential device toxicity and effectiveness in relation to the desired treatment. All these issues are addressed by the German pre-standard DIN SPEC 91315:2014-06 (DINSpec), which deals with the safety limits, risk assessment and biological efficacy of plasma sources aimed for medical applications. In this work, a low cost, user-friendly and flexible atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) device was characterized following the DINSpec guidelines. The device, which is still under development, proved to be safe for medical applications. It is capable of producing an APPJ with low patient leakage current and UV emission, gas temperature lower than 40 {\deg}C, production of harmful gases within the safety limits and low cytotoxicity. The most differentiating feature is that the device presented good antimicrobial efficacy even operating at frequency of the order of just a few hundred Hz, a value below that of most devices reported in the literature.