Plasma-activated water for medical applications, including cancer treatment

PAW has many fundamental questions still unanswered, such as: what determines the chemistry of PAW? and how to selectively generate/control the desired water chemistry? The research aims to understand the interactions/relations between the cold plasma operating parameters such as plasma volume, electrode configuration, operating current, and electron temperature with the plasma chemistry in the headspace. The approach to answer this is to carefully map all the 900+ chemical reactions involving 33 species and mathematical modelling of the system. The plan is to establish a relation between the species generated around the plasma to that of the PAW. To be specific, it is understood that ~ 50 ppm levels of H2O2 along with the ~ 20 ppb level of per-oxynitrate, contributes to the antimicrobial nature of the PAW. However, how to achieve only these species in PAW by suppressing other chemistry is yet to be understood.  Designing plasma systems to prepare PAW with high species selectivity and yield will revolutionize the application of PAW for specific applications such as cancer treatment, burn wounds and the treatment of multidrug-resistant bacteria. For this work, the plan is to continue working with established collaborations both inside and outside IISc, namely the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology and M/s Sri Shankara Research Centre, Rangadore Memorial Hospital. This work will open a new field of plasma medicine.