Researches on the interaction between gas plasmas and aqueous solutions: significance, challenges and new progresses

The cold atmospheric-pressure plasmas have great application prospects in the fields of environmental protection, biomedicine, nanotechnology, et al. In such applications, the targets to be treated by plasmas are often immersed in aqueous solutions, therefore, the interaction between gas plasma and aqueous solution plays the dominant role. Although a great amount of researches have been launched for gas plasmas, the interaction of these gas plasmas with aqueous solutions is hardly focused on. Particularly, how do reactive species transfer into aqueous solutions, what chemical conversions happen in the solutions, and finally which species can act on the targets? These are still open questions especially in quantitative level. Since the composition and dosage of reactive species acting on the treated targets are crucial for the effect of applications, the lack of scientific cognition limits the industrial development. The interaction between gas plasma and aqueous solution is now the hot spot in the research field of plasmas internationally, thus, we review its research status, key scientific problems, and new progresses so as to benefit the relevant researches.