Modeling study of the indirect treatment of phosphate buffered saline in surface air plasma

Phosphate buffered saline (PBS) is a commonly used medium for in vitro experiments in plasma biomedicine; however, the mechanism for changes in PBS in response to plasma treatment is not well understood. Many kinds of reactive species are produced in plasma-activated PBS, but to date only a few of them can be quantified. In this paper, therefore, we aim to develop a fully coupled model for the interaction between surface air plasma and PBS, primarily to quantify its plasma-induced aqueous reactive species, as well as to elucidate their production mechanism. This model consists of a 0D sub-model for the surface plasma in air, and two 1D sub-models: for the PBS, and for the air gap between the plasma and the PBS. Similar models have been reported by our group fwith respect to the plasma treatment of deionized water. Here, by comparison, an additional 24 chlorine compounds, 17 phosphorous species and 123 chemical reactions are incorporated in our model. Our results indicate that the main aqueous reactive species are H2O2aq, O3aq, NO2aq-, NO3aq-, HClOaq, ClO2aq and ClO3aq-. During plasma treatment, the oxidation reduction potential of most reactive species increases within the first 50 s, then remains almost constant. The chemical profile of the plasma-activated PBS is also plotted, from which it can be observed that some reactive oxygen species, such as OHaq, H2O2aq, and O3aq play a crucial role in the production of chlorine compounds such as HClOaq and ClO3aq-.