Introduction
The plasma medicine is a relatively recent issue which offers novel approaches to treat a wide range of illnesses. Due to the unusual quality and extended range of medical applications, including bio-sterilization [
1], skin regeneration [
2], wound healing [
3], teeth whitening [
4], blood coagulation, cancer cells treatment [
5,
6,
7], and engineering of biomaterials and tissues [
8], cold plasma discharge produced at atmospheric pressure has paid more attention in recent years. Generally, cells, tissues, and organs can all be treated employing the so-called cold atmospheric plasmas. The term "cold" describes a crucial characteristic of particular types of plasma, such as the fact that the temperature of the ions and other heavy species present in the plasma is much lower than that of the plasma's electrons [
9,
10]
.
Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) offers a higher intensity, more flexible, and regulated discharge in comparison to other plasma sources which is used by the majority of biomedical devices utilizing in the cold plasma discharge [
11]. A lot of literatures has been focused on identifying and analyzing the plasma properties and active species during performing successful experimental research on atmospheric pressure plasma applications in surface treatment, engineering [
12,
13] processing technology, and sterilizing [
14,
15]. Additionally, different research groups have studied on simulating DBD plasmas at atmospheric pressure. For instance, Gadkari et al. [
16] used a 2-D fluid model in COMSOL Multiphysics to simulate a co-axial DBD plasma reactor in pure helium. They examined how partial packing affected the helium dielectric barrier discharge's properties. In addition, Pan et al. [
17] numerically studied on different features of the atmospheric-pressure CF
4 plasma in a dielectric barrier discharge using the fluid model. They obtained the plasma parameters in steady state. Furthermore, Abidat et al. [
18] investigated a one-dimensional model of atmospheric pressure helium gas dielectric barrier discharge with COMSOL Multiphysics simulation. They reported the effect of dielectric coefficient and distance between electrodes on Lissajous curve. Golubovskii et al. [
19] used the numerical methods to study the spatiotemporal properties of the homogeneous barrier discharge in helium. They utilized a one-dimensional fluid model to investigate how the main processes affect the discharge via rate constants. Moreover, they extracted the plasma parameters in steady state.
Enterally, combining gases is one of the key methods to enhance the plasma performance in medical applications [
20,
21,
22]. This is because using different gas combinations can produce other active species that are beneficial for medical applications. Employing various types of gases with different compositions is one of the ever-toughest techniques in plasma modeling. Therefore, in this study, a simulation is performed for exploring of inlet gas combination portion in cold plasma. Different portions of H
2O are mixed with helium gas and plasma characteristics had been investigated. As a result, the best and effective combination of these two gases was determined for medical applications.
Results and Discussion
As referred in different [
31,
32] the electron density and its temperature have a significant impact on medical applications. Therefore, in this paper, the main purpose is finding the optimized plasma parameters for utilizing in biomedical surface sterilization. Here, the plasma is a radiofrequency discharge operating at 1 atm pressure. Furthermore, about 20% of the gas combination is made from H
2O. As a first step, the evolution of the electric potential as a function of distance is shown in
Figure 1, in the various percentages of He + H
2O mixtures like: He + 20% H
2O, He +15% H
2O, He +10% H
2O, and He + 5% H
2O at 0.0015 s. As it is clearly seen in this figure, a concavity is observed in 0. Moreover, the highest magnitudes of electric field are related to He + 5% H
2O mixture.
Figure 2.
The evolution of the electric potential versus distance, for various percentages of H2O mixtures of 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20.
Figure 2.
The evolution of the electric potential versus distance, for various percentages of H2O mixtures of 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.20.
In addition, spatial distribution of electron temperature is presented in
Figure 3 as a function of different percentages of H
2O (5, 10, 15, and 20 %). As it is obviously seen in
Figure 3, the maximum magnitude of temperature is happened at sh=0.1. Moreover, at lower positions, a minimum is observed especially at 0.05, but it will be vice versa at higher positions or near to electrode.
A comparison among various voltages and currents of different percentages of H
2O mixture in He gas is presented in
Figure 4. As shown in this figure, an oscillational behavior is appeared for voltage variations. According to the
Figure 4, the lowest electric current is obtained at the humidity level of 0.1, which can be caused by more electron collisions at this humidity level, where fewer electrons reach the opposite surface and less current is obtained. These collisions lead to the production of electrons and the density of more positive species. The accumulation of heavy species causes the deviation of electrons and causes fewer electrons to reach the opposite plane.
FIGURE 5 represents the Root Mean Square (RMS) variations of the electron density for different mixtures of H
2O in He gas as a function of distance. A similar trend in magnitudes as seen in
Figure 3 can be observed in
Figure 5 too. On the other hand, the greatest values in the electron density occur for 0.1 of H
2O similar to the case of the maximum magnitudes of the electron temperature. In all mixtures, after x=5.0E-5, a growth in electron densities is presented, while a downward trend is shown near to electrode surface. Moreover, a minimum in density is observed for whole H
2O mixture except to 0.1.
The RMS distribution of H
+ density for various H
2O mixtures in the He gas are shown in
Figure 6 as a function of distance. As it is seen in this figure, the greatest magnitude of H
+ density occurs at 0.1 H
2O and then, a sudden downward trend is observed in this concentration. Furthermore, for two mixtures of 0.1 and 0.15, a decrease in H
+ densities are observed in x=2E-4, i.e. in the vicinity of the electrode surface. The numerical value obtained for the electron density for an atmospheric pressure plasma is in good agreement with previous simulation and experimental works [
33,
34].
In
Figure 7, the evolution of the H
2O
+ density is presented as a function of distance. As it is shown in this figure, the H
2O
+ density for 0.1 mixture has a downward trend.
Figure 7 also shows a similar behavior in magnitude to that of
Figure 6. As it is seen in this figure, the other percentages represent approximately constant magnitudes with respect to the distance from the electrodes.
The spatial evolution of He
+ density is illustrated in
Figure 8 which represents the highest magnitude for 0.1 mixture. Furthermore, at 0.1 mixture, first an increasing trend is seen, but decreasing trend is observed at 2.0E-4. For two percentages of 5% and 20%, a concavity appears at an approximately distance of 1.0E-4 from the dielectric, while for the 15%, the minimum is occurred at 5.0 E-5.
The density of excited helium is illustrated in
Figure 9. Clearly, at 0.1 H
2O mixture, with highest magnitude show an upward trend between two electrodes. In addition, for all combinations, a drop is presented near the electrode surfaces at x=0 and 2E-4 m. Moreover, at a distance of 0.75E-4 from the dielectric, a concavity is presented for two percentages of 5 and 20 %.
OH radicals have been reported to enhance chemical processes [
35] and can cause damage to the fatty acid side chains of lipids in different membranes, including the mitochondrial membranes of cells [
36].
Figure 10 demonstrates the variations of OH density as function of x coordinate. In this figure for percentage of H
2O 0.1 mixed, a downward trend is represented, especially at distance of 2E-4 from the first dielectric. In the other mixtures, a constant density is observed, while at 2E-4 meters from the dielectric, all the graphs converged.
The existence of atomic O, an active species, in plasma-especially cold plasma-is crucial, particularly for applications in medicine. As shown in
Figure 11. As the amount of moisture increases, the atomic number of oxygen increases, but this change is not very significant due to the lower contribution.
The amount obtained for the species was compared with previous works. Due to the fact that the plasmas utilized in the earlier studies were specifically tailored for various purposes, the parameters of the plasma, such as voltage, were set at greater levels, thus resulting in an increase in the discharge gap. However, the particle density is directly proportional to the atmospheric pressure plasma of helium-water gas [
24,
34,
37].
Figure 1.
A schematic of the structure of the plasma by presenting the locations of the electrodes on the surface and inside of the behind dielectric.
Figure 1.
A schematic of the structure of the plasma by presenting the locations of the electrodes on the surface and inside of the behind dielectric.
Figure 3.
The spatial distribution of the electron temperature at 0.0015 s, for different percentages of H2O at sh = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 3.
The spatial distribution of the electron temperature at 0.0015 s, for different percentages of H2O at sh = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 4.
The evolution of voltage and current versus time, for different percentages of H2O.
Figure 4.
The evolution of voltage and current versus time, for different percentages of H2O.
Figure 5.
The spatial distribution of the electron density for different percentages of H2O at sh=0.05, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2.
Figure 5.
The spatial distribution of the electron density for different percentages of H2O at sh=0.05, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2.
Figure 6.
The spatial distribution of H+ density for various H2O percentages of sh=0.05, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2.
Figure 6.
The spatial distribution of H+ density for various H2O percentages of sh=0.05, 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2.
Figure 7.
The regional distribution of the H2O+ density for different H2O ratios for various mixtures of sh=0.05,0.1,0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 7.
The regional distribution of the H2O+ density for different H2O ratios for various mixtures of sh=0.05,0.1,0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 8.
The evolution of He+ density versus distance, for different percentages of 0.05,0.10,0.15, and 0.20.
Figure 8.
The evolution of He+ density versus distance, for different percentages of 0.05,0.10,0.15, and 0.20.
Figure 9.
The spatial distribution of the exited helium density for different percentages of H2O at sh=0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 9.
The spatial distribution of the exited helium density for different percentages of H2O at sh=0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 10.
Variations of OH density as a function of distance, for different mixtures of H2O with 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 10.
Variations of OH density as a function of distance, for different mixtures of H2O with 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 11.
Variations of O density as a function of distance, for different mixtures of H2O with 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Figure 11.
Variations of O density as a function of distance, for different mixtures of H2O with 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, and 0.2.
Table 1.
Various species incorporated in the plasma model simulation.
Table 1.
Various species incorporated in the plasma model simulation.
Table 2.
List of the main reactions including elastic, excitation, and ionization phenomena [
28].
Table 2.
List of the main reactions including elastic, excitation, and ionization phenomena [
28].
Table 3.
List of some reactions with He specie by insertion of rate coefficient [
28].
Table 3.
List of some reactions with He specie by insertion of rate coefficient [
28].
Table 4.
Surface reactions with insertion of the sticking coefficient [
29].
Table 4.
Surface reactions with insertion of the sticking coefficient [
29].