TITLE:
Charge Neutralization in the Core of Plasma Treatment
AUTHORS:
Djamel Ghernaout
KEYWORDS:
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Cold Atmospheric-Pressure Plasmas (CAPs), Charge Neutralization (CN), Reactive Oxygen Species (ROSs), Reactive Nitrogen Species (RNSs), Water Treatment
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.7 No.6,
June
10,
2020
ABSTRACT: At the COVID-19 time, viruses could easily contaminate humans, animals, and plants. In charge of several hospitalizations, many deaths, and widespread crop destruction, viruses lead to a considerable medical, economical, and biological burden. Several applied disinfection techniques are efficient and unfortunately possess inherent disadvantages. As a fresh, performant and green technology, cold plasma has attracted attention for its efficacy in viruses’ killing. This work presents a brief summary of the late developments in the domain of applying cold plasma in dealing with viruses. The “plasma” term refers to any gas-discharged setup with ions and energetic electrons, where charged particles and plasma-generated highly reactive species dictate the physiochemical features of the whole system. When the electron gaining sufficient energy to defeating the electrostatic potential barrier, the electron will be stripped away to produce a free electron and a positively charged ion. Such a phenomenon is named ionization. This phenomenon is similar to the coagulation/flocculation (C/F) processes that are due to charge neutralization (CN) and sweep flocculation (SF) mechanisms. Colloids may be inorganic (such as clay particles), organic (like humic particles and macromolecules), or biological (bacteria, viruses, etc.). The consequence of this smallness in size and mass and largeness in surface area is that in colloidal suspensions: gravitational effects are negligible and surface phenomena predominate. Hence, during C/F process, colloids are removed by CN and SF mechanisms which act on the anionic charge of the colloid by its neutralization prior to its removal by sedimentation/filtration. There is a CN mechanism dictated by the presence of positive ions formed through plasma utilization. Further research is requested to understand the CN mechanism related to plasma treatment and optimize such a promising technology.