Influence of low-temperature plasma on green algae culture

Abstract

Influence of low-temperature plasma, which was formed in a high-resource arc-discharge plasma jet in an argon-air mixture, was studied for a community of green algae as Chlorella vulgaris Beyerinck [Beijerinck] and Stichococcus bacillaris Nägeli. It was found that the plasma treatment for 10 minutes led to partial cell death. At the same time, the species of C. vulgaris were less sensitive to the plasma treatment than the species of S. bacillaris. After plasma exposure, the predominant growth of the latter culture was observed in comparison with the control samples. This effect can be explained by an activation of biochemical processes in the algae due to the interaction with radicals in the low-temperature plasma. The results obtained indicate the selectivity of the low-temperature plasma effect on green algae community.