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.

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has shown its antitumor activity in both in vitro and in vivo systems. However, the mechanisms at the basis of CAP‐cell interaction are not yet completely understood. The aim of this study is to investigate CAP proapoptotic effect and identify some of the molecular mechanisms triggered by CAP in human T‐lymphoblastoid leukemia cells. CAP treatment was performed by means of a wand electrode DBD source driven by nanosecond high‐voltage pulses under different operating conditions. The biological endpoints were assessed through flow cytometry and real‐time PCR. CAP caused apoptosis in Jurkat cells mediated by p53 upregulation. To test the involvement of intrinsic and/or extrinsic pathway, the expression of Bax/Bcl‐2 and caspase‐8 was analyzed. The activation of caspase‐8 and the upregulation of Bax and Bcl‐2 were observed. Moreover, CAP treatment increased ROS intracellular level. The situation reverts after a longer time of treatment. This is probably due to compensatory cellular mechanisms such as the posttranscriptional upregulation of SOD1, CAT, and GSR2. According to ROS increase, CAP induced a significant increase in DNA damage at all treatment conditions. In conclusion, our results provide a deeper understanding of CAP potential in the oncological field and pose the basis for the evaluation of its toxicological profile.

Nowadays, one of the main challenges is moving towards an eco-sustainable agriculture, able to preserve the food production through a reduced use of pesticides. Current global food sustenance by intensive agriculture is mainly based on economic crop monocultures and drastically reduces the biodiversity, increasing the yield losses due to the presence of biotic and abiotic stresses. A technology based on plasma activated water (PAW), characterized by the presence in liquid of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, was tested to try to ensure yield stability also enhancing the plant resistance responses and to promote an eco-sustainable management of plant diseases. In PAW-treated micropropagated periwinkle shoots, periwinkle and grapevine plants, qRT-PCR and small RNAs high-throughput sequencing were used to analyse the differential expression of genes involved in the major plant defence pathways. The results indicate that PAW treatment enhances the plant defence responses and provide an encouraging framework for future applications in plant disease management programs.