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Recently, the team led by Prof. Huang Qing from the Hefei Institutes of Â鶹ÒùÔºical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed using a portable pulsed cold air plasma jet (PP-CAPJ) to treat Trichophyton rubrum in nails. They revealed that the shock wave from PP-CAPJ could effectively kill this fungus.

This study was in Applied Â鶹ÒùÔºics Letters.

Onychomycosis is a fungal nail infection, which is the most common nail disease. Trichophyton rubrum is a common harmful fungus in onychomycosis. Because it is hidden in nails, it is difficult to kill directly using general methods.

In this study, the researchers used a portable pulsed cold air plasma jet device to kill Trichophyton rubrum in nails, and studied the related mechanism. They established a nail model of onychomycosis infection, and then used PP-CAPJ to treat nails of different thicknesses.

They found that PP-CAPJ had a prominent killing effect on Trichophyton rubrum in nails of a certain thickness, and the PP-CAPJ device could kill 90% of Trichophyton rubrum in nails with 300 spark discharges.

Furthermore, researchers experimentally verified the velocity and pressure of the shock wave generated by PP-CAPJ, finding that the device could generate instantaneous pressure greater than 1 MPa at the nail surface. They found that the shock wave generated by PP-CAPJ destroyed the cell membrane of Trichophyton rubrum in nails.

This represents a new type of application of low-temperature plasma technology, as well as a new mechanism for killing fungi using PP-CAPJ.