Cold plasma oxidation of harmful algae and associated metabolite BMAA toxin in aqueous suspension

Bernard Nisol, Sean Watson, Yves Leblanc, Saber Moradinejad, Michael R. Wertheimer, Arash Zamyadi

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19 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We report experiments in which reactive oxygen species (ROS) from a 20 kHz HV discharge in Ar/O2 (90/10) gas mixture at atmospheric pressure were directly bubbled into highly concentrated aqueous suspensions of cyanobacteria Dolichospermum, green algae Scenedesmus and BMAA toxin, simulating extreme algal blooms. It has been found that even quite short treatment durations, up to 6 min, could greatly reduce the numbers of viable cells and completely destroy the BMAA toxin. Perhaps even more important, “plasma-activated water” (PAW) was found to continue its effectiveness after 24 h, even 4 days after terminating the discharge.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1800137
Number of pages6
JournalPlasma Processes and Polymers
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2019
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • BMAA
  • cold atmospheric-pressure plasma
  • cyanobacteria
  • cyanotoxin
  • harmful algal bloom
  • oxidation
  • plasma-activated water (PAW)
  • ROS

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