Cold Plasma

Cold plasmas are only partially ionized – typically only one in 10,000 particles in the gas is ionized. The special feature of this type of plasma (also called “non-thermal” plasma) is that the electrons, ions and neutral atoms in the gas are not at the same temperature. The energy of electrons in the plasma is quite high in comparison to low-energy ions and molecules within the gas. These low-temperature or non-thermal plasmas can be applied to many substrates including biological substrates without thermal damage.  

We deploy cold plasma to improve properties of 3D printed polymers. Further, cold plasma treatment also enables recycling of polymers. Cold plasmas could play an important role in the recovery and recycling of CO2. Cold plasmas are the only medium in which CO2 molecules can be preferentially excited to make them more reactive, without wasting precious energy heating up the whole gas. Rather than burying the CO2 in underground sequestration fields, which is a technically complex process that acidifies soil and leaves future generations with the problem of stored CO2 on their hands, the idea is to try to capture the emitted CO2 and recycle it by converting it into higher energy density molecules, such as ethanol or methanol.