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Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma work without chemicals? I keep talking about reactive this and reactive that, so it's a fair question. Short answer: you don't need to add any chemicals. Plasma makes its own.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 What do I actually do for work?

00:06 Can plasma work without chemicals? (I keep saying "reactive species")

00:30 My job: atmospheric pressure plasma chemist

00:49 To make plasma you need gas (like air) and electricity. Nothing else.

01:20 The trick: it's not exactly chemical-free

01:27 Air is oxygen, nitrogen, water, plus trace gases like methane and hydrogen sulfide

01:42 And whatever is already on the surface you're treating

01:48 Basics: O₂, N₂, and H₂O are chemicals

02:03 Plasma ionizes them and rips them apart

02:23 Nitrogen + oxygen → nitrogen oxides

02:29 Atomic oxygen + O₂ → ozone

02:38 Water → OH radical, super reactive

02:48 Tons of reactive chemistry without adding anything

02:58 Turn plasma off and most of it disappears in a fraction of a second

03:26 OH goes first. Ozone and hydrogen peroxide linger. Peroxynitrite turns into nitric acid within minutes.

03:47 Adding chemistry on purpose

03:53 Without additives, plasma is oxidative enough to sterilize an open wound

04:02 With additives: a company in Ireland disinfects the wound, then deposits a polymer bandage with plasma

04:37 Where "no added chemicals" really matters

04:46 Food disinfection and medical device disinfection

04:55 Far from the supply chain, no bleach? Plasma is just electricity.

05:04 Solar panel + plasma: disinfect wounds, water, or vegetables in the field, or run it fast on a conveyor

05:25 So: no added chemicals? Yes.

05:33 My job is tailoring the chemicals plasma generates to each application

05:51 Can plasma work without chemicals? Not really. Plasma makes chemicals.

If you work in disinfection, food safety, field medicine, or surface processing, this is the episode.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #PlasmaChemistry #Disinfection #FoodSafety #WoundCare #OffGrid #ReactiveSpecies

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma weld metal? More than you know. Most welding you've seen is already plasma. The interesting part is what happens when you try it in space.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Can plasma weld metal? More than you know.

00:06 Most welding people know is plasma: a thermal arc between electrode and workpiece

00:28 Other kinds of welding: friction welding and more

00:37 Plasma in novel applications

00:49 My Texas A&M colleagues drill into rock with thermal plasma

01:03 Traditional hot plasma welding: boring, but works really well

01:11 Micro-welding: dissimilar metals, very thin metals, metals to non-metals

01:32 Glue people would argue gluing is chemical welding

01:47 The message: even a "boring" topic merits PhDs, new companies, and new products

02:05 SpaceX is all welded together

02:13 Manufacturing in space changes everything

02:17 You can't just put your TIG welder on a rocket

02:31 The Soviets, 1969: electron beam welding in space

02:48 The coolest thing I learned recently: cold welding in vacuum

02:59 Two perfectly clean, perfectly flat plates touch and fuse. No heat, no pressure.

03:15 Joining is easy. Getting the surfaces clean and flat is the hard part.

03:40 Plasma prepares the surface

03:58 Low-power cold plasma in vacuum (plus additives) removes oxides, oils, and contaminants

04:16 Welding in space is the frontier of space manufacturing

04:29 Microgravity is weird physics

04:33 Shielding gas blows molten metal all over the place

04:43 Metal particles get charged. On Earth gravity pulls them down. In space it doesn't.

05:05 We need new welding techniques for everything we'll build on Mars and beyond

05:21 Wrap-up

If you work in welding, aerospace, space manufacturing, or materials joining, this is the episode.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #Welding #SpaceManufacturing #ColdWelding #Aerospace #Manufacturing #MaterialsScience

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: if plasma can make water safer to drink, why isn't it under your sink right now? Short answer: plasma does things almost nothing else can, including destroying PFAS. It also creates byproducts you don't want to drink.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 If plasma can clean water, why isn't it under your sink?

00:11 Can it clean your water? Yes.

00:15 Solar panel + cheap ozone generator + bubbles = oxidized bacteria and contaminants

00:37 Stronger plasmas destroy what filters and chlorine can't

00:53 PFAS: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the "forever chemicals"

01:03 Plasma has been shown to destroy PFAS in water, not just filter and store it

01:16 One of EPA's top recommended methods for PFAS: granular activated carbon (GAC)

01:34 You concentrate the toxic chemicals on GAC. Then what? Landfill.

01:45 It leaches back into groundwater, and you buy more GAC forever

01:56 Incineration? Very few facilities can burn PFAS without releasing it into the air

02:18 Plasma has been demonstrated to destroy PFAS on spent GAC

02:26 So why isn't plasma in your home?

02:38 You don't know what's in your source water

02:43 Trace bromine + plasma = bromate, which is toxic

02:53 Plasma also makes nitrates. You don't want to drink those either.

03:01 Plasma is part of the solution, not the whole thing

03:07 Potable water treatment has to be a holistic, multi-step process

03:38 Can plasma make water safer? Yes, and it can do things few other technologies can

03:47 Lots of engineering work before it shows up in your kitchen

03:55 Go to school, study plasma, become one of us

If you work in water treatment, PFAS remediation, utilities, or environmental regulation, this is the map episode.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #PFAS #ForeverChemicals #WaterTreatment #DrinkingWater #GAC #EnvironmentalEngineering

Round 5 of the Gloriously Dumb series. I asked AI to pretend it's a YouTuber and ask me the dumbest "Can Plasma?" questions it could think of. Today's category: Existential & Absurd. Five questions. One of them is actually a yes, and it's a big one.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 AI pretends to be a YouTuber and asks me gloriously dumb questions

00:14 Round 5: Existential & Absurd, five questions

00:26 Q1: Can plasma make me funnier? No. Certainly doesn't work for me.

00:43 Q2: Can plasma fix the economy? Actually, yes.

00:52 Fusion reactors are plasma

01:19 Imagine a $30,000 to $50,000 reactor built into your house

01:30 All electricity in that house, free forever

01:34 Charge your car once every 10 years

01:53 Imagine an economy where electricity is free

02:02 Q3: Can plasma end traffic?

02:09 Our plasma system for removing and redepositing road markings

02:20 Scarifiers leave "ghost markings" that confuse autonomous vehicles

02:44 Better road markings, yes. End traffic, no.

02:51 Q4: Can plasma make Mondays better? Only if you watch this channel every Monday.

03:01 Q5: Can plasma replace my morning alarm? Plasma-ball alarm clocks exist. So, yes.

03:20 Send me your questions in the comments

If you liked the earlier rounds (Food & Kitchen, Personal & Grooming, Animals, Household & Random), this is the next one.

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#CanPlasma #GloriouslyDumb #PlasmaScience #Fusion #AI #AutonomousVehicles #SciComm

The question I get constantly on LinkedIn and from high school and undergrad students: should I get a PhD? It's 2026. If you're asking me, my answer is no. Because you asked. Here's the long version, from someone who has one and doesn't regret it.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Should I get a PhD? It's 2026.

00:21 My answer: no. Because you asked.

00:48 The 3 questions: why do you want it, what will you do with it, will you use it?

01:26 What's in this video

02:22 Skills vs credentials

02:41 $50 online doctorate (or send me $20 and I'll print you one)

03:12 A PhD trains you deep and narrow. Real-world problems are broad.

03:38 25 years on one type of plasma, and everything I don't do

04:11 Industry calls PhDs to solve the tiny pin that changes the whole machine

04:50 Literature review, rigor, data analysis: all learnable on the job

05:49 How I literally fell into a PhD

06:01 Computer science undergrad, late-90s front-end consultant

06:20 The dot-com bubble burst. I lost my job.

06:33 A master's in bioengineering, as far from computers as possible

07:04 I loved it. PhD took 6 years. My mentors had to push me out.

07:47 Opportunity cost: an $18,750 per year grad stipend

08:42 6 years of industry experience is huge in your 20s

08:54 In fast-moving fields, a PhD can make your knowledge dated

09:11 The Pascal story

10:00 What actually predicts success

10:51 VCs and hiring managers care about your portfolio, not your diploma

11:25 My PhD is a side effect of the goal, not the goal

11:39 Curiosity, execution, resilience. No program teaches those.

11:59 Structural issues in academia

12:11 PhD programs are designed to produce professors. They're oversupplied.

12:56 Academic research is incentivized toward publishing

13:16 100+ papers. A dozen products. Zero on a Home Depot shelf (yet).

13:52 The advisor-student dynamic

14:16 I had 7 advisors, which let me play the power dynamics

14:37 A bad advisor can waste 5 years of your life

14:55 If you ask me, no

15:05 Funny story: asking my dad if I should get married

15:34 The gatekeeping argument

15:57 Open access papers, YouTube, Coursera, AI

16:50 Top employers hire self-taught scientists

17:21 Bring a working prototype to your interview

17:29 At pitch events, nobody cares about the PhD next to the 20-year-old with the cool product

17:53 The exception: if your calling is to teach as a university professor

18:28 Quotes about PhDs, and my reactions

21:30 The one I agree with: a PhD teaches you how to question

21:56 You can learn that on your own too

If you're a high schooler, undergrad, career changer, or a parent of one, watch this before you apply.

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#PhD #GradSchool #Careers #Academia #STEM #Entrepreneurship #HigherEducation #Science

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma stop metal from rusting? Yes, in a few ways. But air plasma is a strong oxidizer, so it can also make rust worse. Three parts: plasma as a coating tool, plasma for growing protective layers, and the catch.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: can plasma stop rust?

00:04 Three topics: coating deposition, surface prep, and the catch

00:25 Plasma to stop rust

00:32 Master's days: the lab next door had a plasma thermal spray tool

00:46 His party trick: feed zinc wire into a thermal plasma torch, spray it onto pencils

00:56 No burning, no paint peeling

01:04 Plasma deposits all sorts of protective coatings onto metals. Works like a charm.

01:19 The more interesting approach: grow the protection from the metal itself

01:24 Aluminum, titanium, and other metals in oxygen-containing plasma

01:34 Oxidize aluminum into a thick aluminum oxide (ceramic) layer

01:49 Non-conductive, and it won't rust

01:55 Iron oxide is rust. Aluminum oxide is ceramic.

02:11 The catch: air plasma is a strong oxidizer

02:21 Use air plasma on the wrong metal and you can increase rust

02:28 Story: our "aging box"

02:37 A chamber with a thermal plasma torch on top

02:44 Multiple powder, gas, and liquid feeds

02:52 Simulate high humidity, salt water, high temperature, even sand blasting

03:09 Test materials for aging, not just rusting

03:16 Built for microelectronics aging validation

03:23 Typical aging test: put it in an oven. Ours: heat, humidity, salt, and sand at once.

03:42 Plasma also simulates atmospheric reentry for spacecraft materials

04:01 So can plasma stop rust? No magic.

04:06 Deposit protective coatings, grow protective layers, or age materials to test them

If you work in corrosion engineering, surface finishing, aerospace materials, or electronics reliability, this is the map episode.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #Corrosion #ThermalSpray #SurfaceEngineering #MaterialsScience #Aerospace #Reliability

Episode 150. Thanks for sticking with the channel. Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can cold plasma kill bacteria on your skin without burning you? Yes. Three parts: why it stays cool, why bacteria die while your tissue survives, and where the safety limits really are.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: plasma on skin, bacteria die, no burn?

00:16 Three things to cover

00:28 Why plasma stays cool

00:40 Dielectric barrier discharges were bred for very gentle surface treatment

00:45 My master's/PhD lab did a lot of work with Kodak processing photographic film in plasma

00:59 Uniform, close to room temperature by design

01:16 Early experiment: a drop of human blood on a slide, plasma coagulated it

01:24 Lightbulb: this could do wound treatment (coagulate + disinfect in one)

01:34 Starting about 25 years ago

01:47 But who sticks their finger in plasma first?

01:52 I did (as a master's student). Felt nothing.

02:03 Temperature rose about 1°C in 10 minutes of treatment, with very low current

02:34 The sensation experiment

02:39 Three kinds of experiences I've witnessed

02:43 About 1/3 feel nothing

02:51 About 1/3 feel a tingle

02:54 About 1/3 feel very mild warmth

03:05 My theory: nerve ending interaction with the high electric field, not actual heat

03:29 Why it stays cool, really: short-pulsed plasma, designed to

03:41 Why bacteria die

03:48 High local electric fields rupture bacterial cell membranes

04:01 Oxidizers and peroxides degrade bacterial DNA

04:13 Localized UV right at the discharge

04:32 Pressure waves from micro-lightning hits

04:48 Multi-vector attack. Very hard for bacteria to develop resistance.

04:53 We've seen resistance to broad-spectrum UV. We've seen resistance to antibiotics.

05:06 We have not seen bacterial resistance to plasma treatment. Full stop.

05:13 Why tissue survives

05:16 Intact outer skin is dead cells, essentially a dense rubber-like polymer membrane

05:33 Nothing there for oxidizers to kill

05:38 Cells under your skin are much larger than bacteria and already handle oxidative stress

05:48 Plasma treatment actually stimulates them

05:52 Where safety limits kick in: higher doses

06:06 Which is also how we started on cancer: cancer cells divide fast, kill them selectively

06:31 Safety considerations are the most important design element here

06:39 Early-career story: a lab mate asked me to treat her eczema

06:48 I said no. No clinical protocols. I'm not going to experiment on you on a whim.

06:54 That's a hard rule I still keep

07:12 By the way, 15 years later, plasma does work for some cases of eczema (not through me on a whim)

07:25 Recap: plasma kills via multi-vector attack while leaving tissue alone, by design

07:50 Safety limits are the most important engineering constraint in this whole field

If you work in clinical plasma medicine, wound care, dermatology, or microbiology, this is the mechanism map episode. 150 episodes in, this one is foundational.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaMedicine #WoundCare #AntimicrobialResistance #Dermatology #Microbiology #PlasmaScience

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: in a recent episode I said plasma datacenter cooling isn't practical. LinkedIn picked up on it. Comments, messages, emails, phone call. All telling me I'm wrong. Let me defend my position with specifics.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Recap: I said plasma cooling of server farms won't work

00:15 LinkedIn disagreed. Loudly.

00:30 Let's deconstruct this

00:32 Ion wind: asymmetric electrodes + electric field = wind, no moving parts

00:52 Demonstrated for boundary layer attachment on airplanes and rockets (flight control)

01:13 The problem there was batteries: too heavy, too big

01:26 My running joke: if your question starts with "can plasma," yes 99% of the time

01:32 Can plasma create wind? Yes. Can wind cool a server? Yes. Is it practical? No.

01:48 Problem 1: Open high voltage + dust = ignition risk

02:14 Ball bearing fans don't ignite dust

02:49 Problem 2: Open high voltage safety for service technicians

02:59 Problem 3: Ozone generation in open air (unavoidable unless pure N₂, argon, helium, neon)

03:11 Short pulses and catalysts can reduce it. Not eliminate it.

03:40 Ozone is corrosive to electronic components

03:50 The COVID mask disinfection machine story

04:04 Internal components corroded in 20-30 runs

04:20 Fix: acrylic spray coating. Still failed after a few hundred cycles.

04:35 Ozone affects workers AND corrodes servers

04:51 My claim was never "impossible." My claim was "not practical."

05:01 Problem 4: Heat. Power supply efficiency is never 100%.

05:12 Reflected energy from the discharge dissipates as heat in the power supply

05:25 So your "cooling system" is also making heat

05:30 Reactive species in plasma also relax to light or heat eventually

05:47 Meanwhile ball bearing fans: my 15-20 year old computer still has original fans

06:06 My NAS has been running for more than a decade on original fans

06:17 Clean the dust off, keep going

06:20 Four problems to overcome: ozone, inefficiency, high voltage safety, heat generation

06:36 Prove me wrong. Comments, LinkedIn, email, whatever. I'd love to make this work.

06:43 I have all the engineering components for a DBD ion wind generator in my lab

06:51 I've played with it. I can't figure out how to make it practical for datacenters.

If you work in datacenter cooling, ion wind systems, DBD engineering, or you were one of the people telling me I'm wrong on LinkedIn, this is the one. Prove me wrong.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #IonWind #Datacenter #ServerCooling #DBD #Ozone #CoolingTechnology

The #1 question I get from students, high schoolers, and undergrads: "What kind of job can I get in plasma? Isn't plasma just welding?" Short answer: no. And semiconductors alone have 9 layers of plasma jobs.

Big thank-you to the Thin Film Engineer on LinkedIn, who makes the clearest plasma-industry graphics I've seen. Follow that account. The specific image I use in this video: https://lnkd.in/p/d5nUhPMp

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 Let's talk about jobs (the #1 student question I get)

00:19 "Isn't plasma just welding?"

00:26 I toured the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, OH about a year ago

00:42 Welding research is active, well funded, and growing (ask SpaceX, which is held together by it)

01:04 Tons of jobs in welding research alone

01:18 But today, let's talk semiconductors

01:23 New computers, RAM, SSDs, data centers, reshoring. All demand chips. All demand plasma.

01:47 A LinkedIn image from the Thin Film Engineer breaks it down into 9 layers

02:11 Just the wafer, not even the whole device. 9 plasma-touched layers.

02:24 Layer 1: Materials. Texas A&M colleagues built a drill head that uses plasma to drill rock for materials extraction

02:53 Layer 2: Thin film deposition. Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is the workhorse.

03:05 Layer 3: Patterning and lithography. UV, VUV, lasers (plasma people argue lasers are plasmas too).

03:36 Workers, scientists, machine builders. Reshoring means we need more.

03:39 Layer 4: Material removal. Etching is dry process = plasma

03:54 Layer 5: Material modification. Oxidation chambers, ICPs, coronas, DBDs, low/high pressure variants.

04:17 Layer 6: Metrology and inspection. Inductively coupled plasma for gas chromatography (vaporize sample, analyze composition).

04:34 Layer 7: Device building. Welding, cutting, coatings = plasma.

04:45 Layer 8: Integration. Soldering sparks are plasma.

04:55 Layer 9: Finished wafer and device. See how Apple makes an iPhone: plasma coatings, plasma cutting, laser cutting.

05:17 Are there jobs in plasma? Heck yes. More and more every year.

05:30 I've been arguing US universities need dedicated Plasma Departments

05:37 In Europe you have Department of Biology, Department of Math, Department of Plasma

05:43 In the US, plasma is tucked into electrical or mechanical engineering

05:50 Fast growing field. You should get into it.

Image source (follow this account): https://lnkd.in/p/d5nUhPMp

If you're a high schooler, undergrad, grad student, or career changer considering plasma, this is the map.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #Semiconductors #Jobs #Careers #ChipManufacturing #Reshoring #STEM #Engineering

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma be invisible? Yes. In fact, some of the most important industrial plasmas are. Time to walk back my own "see it and hear it" rule from a few episodes ago.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: is plasma always loud and visible?

00:05 Not really. The important cases usually aren't.

00:12 Three points: why we see plasmas, invisible cases, why it matters

00:21 Natural plasma: lightning in air at high power

00:34 Arcs produce vibrational and electronic excitation, which relaxes into light

00:47 My undergrad rule: "if you can see it and hear it, there's plasma"

01:01 Walking it back today. Many cases where it isn't true.

01:05 My master's work: vacuum ultraviolet

01:14 Spectrum map: UVA, UVB, UVC, then VUV (vacuum UV), then EUV (extreme UV)

01:30 EUV is what makes microchip masks in semiconductor manufacturing

01:43 Is it important? Oh, hell yeah. Is it visible? Nope.

01:51 Second case: plasma diagnostics is increasingly important

02:14 Industrial burners (not your fire pit): huge, serve downstream processes

02:22 When the flame goes out, you need to reignite with a plasma spark

02:36 Then you need diagnostics: is the flame on? Did the re-ignition work?

02:58 Measurement in optical emission, including deep UV and infrared

03:11 Lots of spectrum human eyes don't see

03:21 Industrially viable plasmas are often invisible

03:27 Which means we need new sensors to see them electronically

If you're in semiconductor manufacturing, industrial burner diagnostics, or you watched my earlier "ionization degree" episode and want the correction, this is the one.

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#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #EUV #Lithography #Semiconductors #PlasmaDiagnostics #OpticalEmission #IndustrialPlasma