This white paper considers the future of plasma science and technology related to the manufacturing and modifications of plastics and textiles, summarizing existing efforts and the current state‐of‐art for major topics related to plasma processing techniques. It draws on the frontier of plasma technologies in order to see beyond and identify the grand challenges which we face in the following 5–10 years. To progress and move the frontier forward, the paper highlights the major enabling technologies and topics related to the design of surfaces, coatings and materials with non‐equilibrium plasmas. The aim is to progress the field of plastics and textile production using advanced plasma processing as the key enabling technology which is environmentally friendly, cost‐efficient, and offers high‐speed processing.

This review contains a theoretical background of optical emission spectroscopy and some selected examples of issues in the field of atmospheric plasmas. It includes elements like line broadening, emission of continua and molecules, radiation models, etc. Modernized expressions figuring the terms hidden in global constants where cgs units prevail are given together with restrictions of use. Easy-to-use formulas are provided to give access to essential plasma parameters.

The understanding of plasma–liquid interactions is of major importance, not only in physical chemistry, chemical engineering and polymer science, but in biomedicine as well as to better control the biological processes induced on/in biological samples by Cold Atmospheric Plasmas (CAPs). Moreover, plasma–air interactions have to be particularly considered since these CAPs propagate in the ambient air. Herein, we developed a helium-based CAP setup equipped with a shielding-gas device, which allows the control of plasma–air interactions. Thanks to this device, we obtained specific diffuse CAPs, with the ability to propagate along several centimetres in the ambient air at atmospheric pressure. Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) measurements were performed on these CAPs during their interaction with a liquid medium (phosphate-buffered saline PBS 10 mM, pH 7.4) giving valuable information about the induced chemistry as a function of the shielding gas composition (variable O₂/(O₂ + N₂) ratio). Several excited species were detected including N₂ ⁺(First Negative System, FNS), N₂(Second Positive System, SPS) and HO˙ radical. The ratios between nitrogen/oxygen excited species strongly depend on the O₂/(O₂ + N₂) ratio. The liquid chemistry developed after CAP treatment was investigated by combining electrochemical and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy methods. We detected and quantified stable oxygen and nitrogen species (H₂O₂, NO₂ ⁻, NO₃ ⁻) along with Reactive Nitrogen Species (RNS) such as the peroxynitrite anion ONOO⁻. It appears that the RNS/ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) ratio in the treated liquid depends also on the shielding gas composition. Eventually, the composition of the surrounding environment of CAPs seems to be crucial for the induced plasma chemistry and consequently, for the liquid chemistry. All these results demonstrate clearly that for physical, chemical and biomedical applications, which are usually achieved in ambient air environments, it is necessary to realize an effective control of plasma–air interactions.

This focused review aims to reveal and illustrate some unique features of processes triggered by high-density energy applied to liquids and gas-liquid interfaces and to highlight a wide spectrum of their technological applications capable of producing various advantageous effects, ranging from nanosynthesis to biological and medical applications. Plasma, electric discharges, laser, and ultrasound power effects were selected as representative examples of high-density energy and liquid interactions, yet the available possibilities are not limited by these quite different types of power and thus the reader could extrapolate the outlined features and effects to other kinds of powerful impacts. The basic physical mechanisms are briefly reviewed with the aim to familiarize the readers with the potential capabilities of high-density energy processes in liquids. These will be of direct interest to researchers tasked with the development, optimization, and characterization of processes and highly reactive environments for highly controlled transformation of matter in abiotic and biological systems. It could also be highly useful for under- and post-graduate students specializing in the related fields and general physical audience involved in various plasma, materials, energy conversion, and other concurrent research activities.

Filamentation in an argon plasma is studied using a microwave cavity at atmospheric pressure. We show that the size and gas temperature of the filaments increase with the power absorbed by the plasma. The appearance of an additional filament occurs at specific values of the absorbed power. Each new filament appears with a smaller diameter than that of its parent filament but the sum of the diameters of all filaments evolves linearly with the absorbed power. A secondary filament emerges from a set of microfilaments created by a perturbation of the electric field (a slight increase in the incident power above a threshold value). This perturbation occurs over a larger radius than that of the parent filament. By resorting to modeling, we found that the filamentation process involves either a decrease in the effective frequency for momentum-transfer collisions, i.e., a lower electron temperature, or an increase in the electron density. We could show that a small change in the relative positions occupied by two filaments in the microwave cavity requires a strong variation in the electron temperature.