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Recently, plasma deposition at atmospheric pressure has become a promising technology due to its reduced equipment costs and its possibility of in‐line processing. The main aim of this work was to show a process for the deposition of functional layers on hollow objects surface by plasma discharge generated above the liquid electrolyte. In principle, this process is based on the surface dielectric barrier discharge, where the plasma is generated from the boundary line of liquid precursor and dielectric surface. As a model precursor compound a hexamethyldisiloxane was chosen for deposition on external and internal wall surface of polytetrafluoroethylene tube. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The applications of gas plasma and plasma modified materials in the emerging fields of medicine such as dentistry, drug delivery, and tissue engineering are reviewed. Plasma sterilization of both living and nonliving objects is safe, fast and efficient; for example plasma sterilization of medical equipment quickly removes microorganisms with no damage to the tiny delicate parts of the equipment and in dentistry it offers a non-toxic, painless bacterial inactivation of tissues from a dental cavity. Devices that generate plasma inside the root canal of a tooth give better killing efficiency against bacteria without causing any harm to the surrounding tissues. Plasma modified materials fulfill the requirements for bioactivity in medicine; for example, the inclusion of antimicrobial agents (metal nano particles, antimicrobial peptides, enzymes, etc.) in plasma modified materials (polymeric, metallic, etc.) alters them to produce superior antibacterial biomedical devices with a longer active life. Thin polymer films or coating on surfaces with different plasma processes improves the adherence, controlled loading and release of drug molecules. Surface functionalization by plasma treatment stimulates cell adhesion, cell growth and the spread of tissue development. Plasma applications are already contributing significantly to the changing face of medicine and future trends are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work is focused on the study of surface plasma treatment (DCSBD) of films from biodegradable polymers from renewable sources based on polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). A 4-factor design of experiment was used where the selected variable parameters were the plasma device power, the time of plasma treatment, the ratio of PHB in the polymer blend with PLA, and the content of acetyl tributyl citrate (ATBC) plasticizer in the PLA + PHB blend. The surface total energy and the polar component were evaluated immediately after surface plasma treatment and after 5 h of sitting. Topography of foil surfaces was also studied by AFM. In terms of plasma power and activation time, the greatest increase in surface energy values was observed with a short plasma time of 2 s and a high power of 400 W. Increasing the content of ATBC in interaction with the high concentration of PHB in the blend results in a reduction in the difference of both the polar component and the total free surface energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]