Background:Cold-atmospheric plasma (CAP) is an ionized gas produced at an atmospheric pressure. The aim of this systematic review is to map the use of CAP in oncology and the implemented methodologies (cell targets, physical parameters, direct or indirect therapies).Methods:PubMed, the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform and Google Scholar were explored until 31 December 2017 for studies regarding the use of plasma treatment in oncology (in vitro, in vivo, clinical trials).Results:190 original articles were included. Plasma jets are the most-used production systems (72.1%). Helium alone was the most-used gas (35.8%), followed by air (26.3%) and argon (22.1%). Studies were mostly in vitro (94.7%) and concerned direct plasma treatments (84.2%). The most targeted cancer cell lines are human cell lines (87.4%), in particular, in brain cancer (16.3%).Conclusions:This study highlights the multiplicity of means of production and clinical applications of the CAP in oncology. While some devices may be used directly at the bedside, others open the way for the development of new pharmaceutical products that could be generated at an industrial scale. However, its clinical use strongly needs the development of standardized reliable protocols, to determine the more efficient type of plasma for each type of cancer, and its combination with conventional treatments.

It is well recognized at present that the unique, high energy density plasma environment provides suitable conditions to dissociate/atomize molecules in remediation systems, to convert waste and biomass into sustainable energy sources, to purify water, to assemble nanostructures, etc. The remarkable plasma potential is based on its ability to supply simultaneously high fluxes of charged particles, chemically active molecules, radicals (e.g. O, H, OH), heat, highly energetic photons (UV and extreme UV radiation), and strong electric fields in intrinsic sheath domains. Due to this complexity, low-temperature plasma science and engineering is a huge, highly interdisciplinary field that spans many research disciplines and applications across many areas of our daily life and industrial activities. For this reason, this review deals only with some selected aspects of low-temperature plasma applications for a clean and sustainable environment. It is not intended to be a comprehensive survey, but just to highlight some important works and achievements in specific areas. The selected issues demonstrate the diversity of plasma-based applications associated with clean and sustainable ambiance and also show the unity of the underlying science. Fundamental plasma phenomena/processes/features are the common fibers that pass across all these areas and unify all these applications. Browsing through different topics, we try to emphasize these phenomena/processes/features and their uniqueness in an attempt to build a general overview. The presented survey of recently published works demonstrates that plasma processes show a significant potential as a solution for waste/biomass-to-energy recovery problems. The reforming technologies based on non-thermal plasma treatment of hydrocarbons show promising prospects for the production of hydrogen as a future clean energy carrier. It is also shown that plasmas can provide numerous agents that influence biological activity. The simultaneous generation in water discharges of intense UV radiation, shock waves and active radicals (OH, O, H 2 O 2 , etc), which are all effective agents against many biological pathogens and harmful chemicals, make these discharges suitable for decontamination, sterilization and purification processes. Moreover, plasmas appear as invaluable tools for the synthesis and engineering of new nanomaterials and in particular 2D materials. A brief overview on plasma-synthesized carbon nanostructures shows the high potential of such materials for energy conversion and storage applications.

Summary: It is demonstrated here that the sterilization process using a flowing N2‐O2 post discharge reactor involves a specific heating of the bacteria metal holder produced by heterogeneous O and N atoms recombination. Such heating increases with N and O‐atom concentrations, which can be varied with the microwave discharge power. It also depends on the metallic material of the holder: a brass support can reach a maximum surface temperature of 120 °C while the surface temperature of the stainless steel holder increases to 60–70 °C after 40 min of exposure to a N2‐5% O2 post discharge at 0.6 kPa (5 Torr), 1 Ln · min−1 and 100 W. It is demonstrated that the E. coli destruction efficiency increases with N and O atom density at a constant temperature (60 °C) of the stainless steel support and with the support temperature (up to 60 °C) at constant N and O atom densities. A cumulative effect was also found with increasing N and O atom density and of the support temperature.