Complex plasma physics on the ISS�and its application in plasma medicine and hygiene

Abstract

Complex plasma research is an interdisciplinary basic research field in between plasma physics and soft matter physics. It offers the possibility to investigate strongly coupled many particle phenomena on the most fundamental, the kinetic level. Our group performed such studies under microgravity conditions on the International Space Station ISS over the last 12 years complementary to the work on ground. Low temperature plasma physics is the basis for this research and a large technological know-how has been developed to build the space experiments at our institute. This special know-how have been transferred to a new field of applied research, the so-called plasma medicine and plasma hygiene. Here, cold atmospheric plasmas (CAPs) are used to kill bacteria, virus, fungi or spores on sensitive surfaces like the human skin at atmospheric pressures. Due to the know-how of building space plasma devices our group was the first in the world that could design, built and qualify a plasma source for the use in clinical trials for the treatment of chronic wounds. The results were very convincing – the wounds were disinfected through the plasma treatment and even more promising, they showed faster wound healing. The applications of CAP in plasma medicine and plasma hygiene are vast and many ideas exist in the community. The plasma could even be used to decontaminate space hardware in terms of planetary protection. A recent study by DLR-ME and MPE showed that CAP could be a new alternative method to decontaminate space vehicles for exploration to moons or Mars. I will present an overview on the three main topics of our research: complex plasma on the ISS, application of CAP on ground in plasma medicine and hygiene and back to space with the application of the decontamination of space equipment