arXiv subjects

T. Dufour

Publications and source records attributed to T. Dufour.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Nutritional and growth enhancement of alfalfa sprouts through cold plasma and UV seed treatments

Employing eco-friendly techniques like cold plasma (CP) and ultraviolet (UV) radiation provides innovative approaches to enhance the sprout quality and productivity of alfalfa. This study explores the effects of CP and UV radiation on the germination, growth, and phytochemical profiles of alfalfa sprouts. CP significantly accelerated germination time, reducing median germination time by 8 hours compared to the control, and enhanced photo synthetic pigments, leading to higher biomass (25.87 mg/sprout fresh weight and 1.45 mg/sprout dry weight). UV treatments, particularly UV-C, increased chlorophyll and total flavonoid content. Overall, CP effectively promotes alfalfa germination and growth, while UV treatments improve specific phytochemicals.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2025

Treatment of sunflower seeds by cold atmospheric plasma enhances their tolerance to water stress during germination and early seedling development

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of ambient air plasma treatment on both sunflower seed germination and early steps of seedling development under water stress. Dry seeds were exposed to a cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) generated in a dielectric barrier device where excited molecular nitrogen and ozone were detected by optical emission spectroscopy and mass spectrometry respectively. Interestingly, we explain the crucial role of gap's accuracy when treating seeds with CAP, especially to improve interaction between seeds and plasma and therefore ensure an efficient treatment. CAP significantly improved the germination rates of seeds of dormant and non-dormant sunflower genotypes under water stress, demonstrating its efficiency in alleviating seed dormancy and in improving germination under suboptimal conditions. Furthermore, greenhouse experiments demonstrated that plasma treatment also stimulated seedling development under water stress conditions. These findings highlight the potential of CAP treatment as an effective approach to promote the whole process of emergence of crop species.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2025

Breaking seed dormancy in Mediterranean Brassica rapa wild populations: is cold plasma treatment efficient?

Turnip (Brassica rapa) is a native species of the Mediterranean area, spread from northwest France to south Algeria. In this study, dormancy and germination traits were assessed for 61 wild Brassica rapa populations collected across the Mediterranean region. Seed dormancy is a key factor influencing germination and seedling establishment. Three dormancy-breaking methods were compared: gibberellic acid, scarification and cold plasma. The efficiency and selectivity were evaluated through germination ability, time to 10% germination (T10), mean germination time and greenhouse emergence. Five days after imbibition, germination was only 18% for the untreated seeds but 60% for the plasma-treated seeds. Germination also began 24 hours earlier and mean germination time was reduced across most populations. However, there was a limited effect on seedling emergence, which remained around 55% for both untreated and treated samples. Comparative analysis indicates that cold plasma was more effective in alleviating embryo dormancy. In addition, histological and scanning electron microscopy showed that the seed coat differed according to the geographical origin of the populations, with a deeper dormancy in seeds from Sicilian populations.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2025

Transferred plasma catheter for endotherapeutic applications: a parametric study of guided streamers dynamics

Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs) are increasingly used in biomedical applications due to their low temperatures and ability to generate reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS), making them suitable for sensitive environments like medical therapies. The transferred plasma catheter (TPC), a variant of APPJ, shows promise for endoscopic applications but requires precise control of plasma dynamics in confined spaces to ensure safety and efficacy. Despite extensive studies on guided streamers in traditional APPJs, there is limited understanding of streamer behavior in TPC configurations, particularly in challenging scenarios involving grounded metallic surfaces. This study examines the spatiotemporal dynamics of guided streamers generated by TPCs under varying gap distances to establish a robust framework for safe and effective plasma delivery in endoscopic settings. Combining electrical and optical diagnostics, the study characterizes streamer propagation, electric field profiles, and plasma-induced currents in a helium-driven TPC delivering cold plasma to a grounded metal target across gaps of 2 to 18 mm. Results show that streamers maintain charge stability and effectively interact with the target for gap distances below 12 mm, producing significant therapeutic currents. Beyond this threshold, propagation deteriorates due to recombination and reduced electric field intensity. For shorter gaps, counter-propagating waves and secondary streamer interactions are observed, while larger gaps lead to charge dissipation and reduced efficacy. These findings highlight the importance of optimizing gap distances for plasma-assisted endoscopic procedures and demonstrate the TPC's robustness in adverse conditions.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2023

Transmission and multiple reflection mechanisms of guided streamers propagating through grounded annular electrode and interacting with grounded surface electrode

Trains of positive guided streamers are generated within an atmospheric pressure plasma jet supplied in helium and polarized by a high-voltage nanosecond pulse generator. The device is completed by a grounded annular electrode and a grounded surface electrode on which they can interact. The resulting transmitted and multiple reflected guided streamers are measured combining optical and electrical characterizations. While the electrical approach provides information on the capacitive/conductive nature of the current peaks as well as on their positive/negative value, fast ICCD imaging distinguishes whether the guided streamers are incident, reflected or transmitted. Combining these two techniques allow us to demonstrate experimentally that the reflected streamers are negative contrarily to the others. Besides, 4 types of reflections have been highlighted: a reflection (r) at the outlet of the capillary, a reflection on the grounded surface electrode (R) and two reflections (r' and r") observed when an incident guided streamer passes through the grounded annular electrode. The two techniques agree that the characteristic propagation times are always shorter for reflected negative streamers than for the positive ones propagating forward. Hence, for a grounded annular electrode placed 3 cm away from the high voltage electrode, propagation time is 80 ns for reflection versus 250 ns for transmission. These propagation times are even shorter when the annular electrode is brought closer to the surface electrode with velocities typically higher than 300 km/s. Finally, all these experimental data are utilized to build an equivalent electrical model to understand the dynamics of the guided streamers and explain their transmission and reflection modes.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2023

Molecular acclimation of Halobacterium salinarum to halite brine inclusions

Halophilic microorganisms have long been known to survive within the brine inclusions of salt crystals, as evidenced by the change in color for salt crystals containing pigmented halophiles. However, the molecular mechanisms allowing this survival has remained an open question for decades. While protocols for the surface sterilization of halite (NaCl) have enabled isolation of cells and DNA from within halite brine inclusions, "-omics" based approaches have faced two main technical challenges: (1) removal of all contaminating organic biomolecules (including proteins) from halite surfaces, and (2) performing selective biomolecule extractions directly from cells contained within halite brine inclusions with sufficient speed to avoid modifications in gene expression during extraction. In this study, we tested different methods to resolve these two technical challenges. Following this method development, we then applied the optimized methods to perform the first examination of the early acclimation of a model haloarchaeon (Halobacterium salinarum NRC-1) to halite brine inclusions. Examinations of the proteome of Halobacterium cells two months post-evaporation revealed a high degree of similarity with stationary phase liquid cultures, but with a sharp down-regulation of ribosomal proteins. While proteins for central metabolism were part of the shared proteome between liquid cultures and halite brine inclusions, proteins involved in cell mobility (archaellum, gas vesicles) were either absent or less abundant in halite samples. Proteins unique to cells within brine inclusions included transporters, suggesting modified interactions between cells and the surrounding brine inclusion microenvironment. The methods and hypotheses presented here enable future studies of the survival of halophiles in both culture model and natural halite systems.

physics.bio-ph↗

arXiv2023

From Repeatability to Self-Organization of Guided Streamers Propagating in a Jet of Cold Plasma

In this work, a jet of cold plasma is generated in a device supplied in helium and powered with a high-voltage nanopulse power supply, hence generating guided streamers. We focus on the interaction between these guided streamers and two targets placed in a series: a metal mesh target (MM) at floating potential followed by a metal plate target (MP) grounded by a 1500 Ω resistor. We demonstrate that such an experimental setup allows to shift from a physics of streamer repeatability to a physics of streamer self-organization, i.e., from the repetition of guided streamers that exhibit fixed spatiotemporal constants to the emergence of self-organized guided streamers, each of which is generated on the rising edge of a high-voltage pulse. Up to five positive guided streamers can be self-organized one after the other, all distinct in space and time. While self-organization occurs in the capillary and up to the MM target, we also demonstrate the existence of transient emissive phenomena in the inter-target region, especially a filamentary discharge whose generation is directly correlated with complexity order Ω. The mechanisms of the self-organized guided streamers are deciphered by correlating their optical and electrical properties measured by fast ICCD camera and current-voltage probes, respectively. For the sake of clarity, special attention is paid to the case where three self-organized guided streamers (α, \b{eta} and γ) propagate at vα = 75.7 km.s-1, v\b{eta} = 66.5 km.s-1 and vγ = 58.2 km.s-1), before being accelerated in the vicinity of the MM target.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2021

Cold plasma treatment of seeds: deciphering the role of contact surfaces through multiple exposures, randomizing and stirring

Cold plasma technologies are an efficient approach to improve the germination properties of seeds, especially in a stacking configuration within a dielectric barrier device. In such dry atmospheric plasma priming process, we show that a He-N2 plasma treatment of 20 min can reduce the median germination time of lentil seeds from 1420 min to 1145 minutes, ie a gain in vigor of 275 min (or +19.4 %). Considering that this result depends on the plasma-seed interaction and therefore on the contact surfaces between the seeds and the plasma, a topographic modeling of a 100 seeds-stack is performed in the dielectric barrier device. This model drives to the distinction between the seed-seed contact surfaces (276 contacts standing for a total area of 230.6 mm2) and the seed-wall contact surfaces (134 contacts standing for a total area of 105.9 mm2). After a single plasma treatment, the outer envelope of each seed is 92% exposed to plasma: a value high enough to support the relevance of the plasma process but which also opens the way to process optimizations. In this outlook, we propose to replace the single 20-minute plasma treatment by a "plasma sequence", ie a succession of shorter plasma treatments whose total duration remains 20 min. Between two successive plasma treatments, the seeds can follow either a trapping procedure (seeds in same positions and orientations) or a randomizing procedure (seeds in same positions but reoriented) or a stirring procedure (seeds vigorously shaken). A sequence of 10 plasma treatments (upon 2 min) separated by short stirring procedures leads to a gain in vigor as high as 405 min vs 275 min for a single plasma treatment of 20 min. We propose to understand these results by correlating the gain in vigor with the water uptake of the seeds and the wettability state of their coating.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2021

Sustainable improvement of seeds vigor using dry atmospheric plasma priming: evidence through coating wettability, water uptake and plasma reactive chemistry

Lentil seeds have been packed in a dielectric barrier device and exposed for several minutes to a cold atmospheric plasma generated in helium with/without a reactive gas (nitrogen or oxygen). While no impact is evidenced on germination rates (caping nearly at 100% with/without plasma exposure), seeds vigor is clearly improved with a median germination time decreasing from 1850 min (31h) to 1500 min (26 h), hence representing a time saving of at least 5 hours. We show that the admixture of nitrogen to helium can further increase this time saving up to 8 hours. Contrarily, we demonstrate that the addition of molecular oxygen to the helium discharge does not promote seeds vigor. Whatever the plasma chemistry utilized, these biological effects are accompanied with strong hydrophilization of the seed coating (with a decrease in contact angles from 118° to 25°) as well as increased water absorption (water uptakes measured 8 hours after imbibition are close to 50% for plasma-treated seeds instead of 37% for seeds from the control group). A follow-up of the seeds over a 45-days ageing period shows the sustainability of the plasma-triggered biological effects: whatever the plasma treatment, seeds vigor remains stable and much higher than for seeds unexposed to plasma). For these reasons, the seed-packed dielectric barrier device (SP-DBD) supplied with a He-N2 gas mixture can be considered as a relevant dry atmospheric priming plasma (DAPP) in the same way as those used in routine by seed companies.

q-bio.OT↗

arXiv2019

Effect of limiting the cathode surface on direct current microhollow cathode discharge in helium

This paper describes how to light several microdischarges in parallel without having to individually ballast each one. The V-I curve of a microhollow cathode discharge is characterized by a constant voltage in the normal glow regime because the plasma is able to spread over the cathode surface area to provide the additional secondary electrons needed. If one limits the cathode surface area, the V-I characteristic can be forced into an abnormal glow regime in which the operating voltage must increase with the current. It is then possible to light several microdischarges mounted in parallel without ballasting them individually.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2019

Treatment of carcinomas using atmospheric pressure plasma jets: from targets to in vivo models to investigate innocuity and therapeutic efficiency

Atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJ) are investigated as an efficient approach to induce antitumor effects of cancerous tissues without inducing any damage (e.g. dessication, burnings). For this, a two-steps methodology has been developed where first APPJ are calibrated and characterized on targets mimicking electrical properties of living organisms (mice, human body) and second where they are applied on murine models to demonstrate their innocuity and therapeutic efficiency.

physics.med-ph↗

arXiv2019

Atmospheric pressure plasma jets applied to cancerology: correlating electrical configurations with in vivo toxicity and therapeutic efficiency

Two atmospheric pressure plasma jet devices - a plasma gun and a plasma Tesla jet - are compared in terms of safety and therapeutic efficiency to reduce the tumor volume progression of cholangiocarcinoma, i.e. a rare and very aggressive cancer emerging in biliary tree. For this, a three steps methodology is carried out. First, the two APPJ have been benchmarked in regard to their electrical and physico-chemical properties while interacting with material targets: dielectric plate, liquid sample, metal plate and an equivalent electrical circuit of human body. The propagation properties of the ionization wave interacting with these targets are discussed, in particular the profile of the related pulsed atmospheric plasma streams. In a second step, a dermal toxicity survey is performed so as to define an experimental operating window where plasma parameters can be changed without damaging healthy skin of mice during their exposure to plasma and without inducing any electrical hazards (burnings, ventricular fibrillation). Optimal conditions are identified discarding the conditions where slight alterations may be evidenced by histology (e.g. prenecrotic aspect of keratinocytes, alterations in the collagen structure). Hence, for the two APPJ plasma parameters these conditions are as follow: duty cycle=14 %, repetition frequency=30 kHz, magnitude=7 kV, gap=10 mm and exposure time=1 min. In a third step, the two plasma jets are utilized on cholangiocarcinoma xenograft tumor model developed in immunodeficient mice. The two devices are safe and a significant therapeutic efficiency is demonstrated with the plasma Tesla. In conclusion, we have developed a safe cold atmospheric plasma device with antitumoral properties in preclinical model of cholangiocarcinoma, opening the path for new anticancer treatment opportunities.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2018

Synthesis and/or grafting of noble metal nanoparticles by microplasma and by atmospheric plasma torch

Plasmas at atmospheric pressure are presented as a simple, fast, and versatile tool for the synthesis or/and the grafting of noble metallic NPs (Au, Pt) on substrates. In this study, noble metal NPs are generated either by the reduction of a gold salt in an aqueous medium by microplasma or either by the decomposition of a platinum or gold organometallic in the post-discharge of an atmospheric plasma torch. The latter can also be used for the grafting of NPs from a commercial colloidal solution

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2018

Single and multiple pin(s)-to-liquid discharges: connecting self-organization patterns and ROS production in liquids for plasma agronomy application

Pin-to-liquid discharges are investigated for the activation of liquids dedicated to agriculture applications. They are characterized through their electrical and optical properties, with a particular attention paid to their filaments and self-organized patterns occurring at the liquid interface. We show how modulating their interaction with ambient air can promote the production of reactive species in liquids such as H2O2, NO2- and NO3-. The effects of the resulting plasma activated media are reported on lentils seeds.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

Reactive species involved in higher seeds germination and shoots vigor through direct plasma exposure and plasma-activated liquids

Cold atmospheric plasma treatments have been applied on lenses seeds and shoots to improve their germination and vigor rates. Two approaches have been considered: direct plasma exposure and plasma activation of liquids (tap water, demineralized water and liquid fertilizer). A special focus has been drawn on reactive oxygen species generated in the plasma phase but also in plasma activated media to understand their impact on germination process as well as on plants growth.

q-bio.OT↗

arXiv2017

Promoting lentil germination and stem growth by plasma activated tap water, demineralized water and liquid fertilizer

Tap water, demineralized water and liquid fertilizer have been activated using an atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) to investigate their benefits for the germination rate and stem elongation rate of lentils from Puy-en-Velay (France). By plasma-activating tap water, we have obtained germination rates as high as 80% (instead of 30% with tap water). Also, higher stem elongation rates and final stem lengths were obtained using activated tap water compared with commercial fertilizer. We show that these rates of germination and stem growth strongly depend on the combination of two radicals generated in the liquids by the plasma: hydrogen peroxide and nitrate. This synergy appears to be a condition for releasing seed dormancy through the endogenous production of NO radicals.

q-bio.OT↗

arXiv2017

CO2-CH4 conversion and syngas formation at atmospheric pressure using a multi-electrode dielectric barrier discharge

The conversion of CO2 and CH4 into value-added chemicals is studied in a new geometry of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) with multi-electrodes, dedicated to the treatment of high gas flow rates. Gas chromatography is used to define the CO2 and CH4 conversion as well as the yields of the products of decomposition (CO, O2 and H2) and of recombination (C2H4, C2H6 and CH2O). The influence of three parameters is investigated on the conversion: the CO2 and CH4 flow rates, the plasma power and the nature of the carrier gas (argon or helium). The energy efficiency of the CO2 conversion is estimated and compared with those of similar atmospheric plasma sources. Our DBD reactor shows a good compromise between a good energy efficiency and the treatment of a large CO2 flow rate.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2016

Ignition and extinction phenomena in helium micro hollow cathode discharges

Micro hollow cathode discharges (MHCD) were produced using 250 m thick dielectric layer of alumina sandwiched between two nickel electrodes of 8 m thickness. A through cavity at the center of the chip was formed by laser drilling technique. MHCD with a diameter of few hundreds of micrometers allowed us to generate direct current discharges in helium at up to atmospheric pressure. A slowly varying ramped voltage generator was used to study the ignition and the extinction periods of the microdischarges. The analysis was performed by using electrical characterisation of the V-I behaviour and the measurement of He*(3S1) metastable atoms density by tunable diode laser spectroscopy. At the ignition of the microdischarges, 2 s long current peak as high as 24 mA was observed, sometimes followed by low amplitude damped oscillations. At helium pressure above 400 Torr, an oscillatory behaviour of the discharge current was observed just before the extinction of the microdischarges. The same type of instability in the extinction period at high pressure also appeared on the density of He*(3S1) metastable atoms, but delayed by a few s relative to the current oscillations. Metastable atoms thus cannot be at the origin of the generation of the observed instabilities.

physics.plasm-ph↗