Role of cold atmospheric plasma in microbial inactivation and the factors affecting its efficacy

The rise in multidrug-resistant pathogens and biofilms has become a significant issue to address. In the rise of the hour, various innovating technologies are being used to combat these deadly pathogens. One of the emerging technologies is cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) which could bring a revolution to this aspect. The antimicrobial property of CAP makes it a powerful tool in the inactivation of multidrug-resistant pathogens and biofilms. This review paper emphasizes how the antimicrobial efficacy of CAP is affected by the types of the devices, operating gas composition and flow rate, variation of source frequency, voltage and power, exposure distance, treatment time, initial concentration of microorganism suspension, and growth media and nature of target microorganisms. Further, the role of various CAP agents i.e., reactive species, charged particles, UV radiation, and electric field in the inactivation mechanism has been reviewed. A brief idea of some of CAP technology's prospects and its effectiveness has been discussed at the end. Overall, the content of this review provides a global thought on the influence of CAP parameters on drug-resistant pathogens and biofilms, which will aid researchers in this field.