Assessment of the roles of various inactivation agents in an argon-based direct current atmospheric pressure cold plasma jet

Three types of gases, pure argon (99.999%), argon with 2% oxygen, and argon with 2% oxygen and 10% nitrogen were used as operating gases of a direct current atmospheric pressure cold plasma jet to inactivate Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) suspended in a liquid. The inactivation efficacies for the plasma jets operating in the three gases decrease from Ar/O2(2%) to Ar/O2(2%)/N2(10%) to pure Ar. Optical emission spectroscopy, electron spin resonance spectroscopy, high performance liquid chromatography, and atomic absorption spectrophotometry were employed to identify and monitor the reactive species in the plasma-liquid system for the three operating gases and revealed the presence of O, 1O2, OH, NO, H2O2, O3, and NO3−/NO2− as well as Cu+/Cu2+. The S. aureus inactivation results indicate that atomic oxygen (O) is the key inactivation agent, while other species play a lesser role in the inactivation progress studied here.