Chat with Greg Fridman

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma be scaled up? You built it in the lab, it works beautifully — now turn it into an industrial process. I wrote down 14 reasons that's harder than it sounds.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: can plasma be scaled up?

00:28 Why I wrote down 14 points for this one

00:36 #1 Preserving the plasma regime — from a 2mm jet to a whole strawberry

01:53 #2 Power supply scaling — from a few watts to 100 kilowatts

02:52 The hard x-ray problem (Bremsstrahlung above ~100 kV)

03:13 #3 Uniformity — keeping electrodes parallel across 8 meters within microns

05:07 #4 Gas flow and mixing — non-equilibrium plasmas don't scale linearly

05:12 #5 Heat management — invisible at lab scale, critical at industrial scale

05:55 #6 Electrode erosion, durability, and 24/7 operation

07:14 #7 Chemistry changes with scale (and the ozone production/destruction tradeoff)

08:02 #8 Mass transfer limits — getting reactants out of the plasma

08:34 #9 Diagnostics — you can't deploy 500 optical emission spectrometers

09:12 #10 Energy efficiency — does 95% lab efficiency hold at scale?

09:46 #11 Modular vs monolithic — why industrial ozone systems use hundreds of small electrodes

10:35 #12 Safety and regulatory burden (FDA, CDC, USDA)

11:41 #13 Manufacturability and repeatability at scale

12:26 #14 Control, feedback, and electromagnetic interference between power supplies

13:21 Wrap-up: lasers and metallurgy face the same problem

13:45 The field is wide open — we need more people. Come help us scale plasmas.

If you're a plasma researcher, process engineer, founder, or student deciding whether this is the field for you — this is the episode.

🔔 Subscribe for more in the "Can Plasma?" series: @gregfridman

#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #ScaleUp #PlasmaEngineering #IndustrialEngineering #ProcessEngineering #Bremsstrahlung #Ozone #ChemicalEngineering

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma be used safely around people? Short answer: it depends on your definition of "safely," "used," and "people." Let me walk you through what that actually means.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: can plasma be used safely around people?

00:31 Why the question hinges on three definitions

00:41 The welding torch test: would you hand one to a 7-year-old?

01:16 The unplugged torch at show-and-tell — context is everything

01:35 Hazard #1: Ozone (and why it disappears in a sunny field but not in a hospital)

02:14 FDA limits on human ozone exposure

02:33 Why hospital patient treatment is hard — but hospital laundry might work

02:56 Hazard #2: Ultraviolet radiation (why welders wear masks)

03:17 Hazard #3: High voltage

03:23 Why I'm talking about this — trade-show questions and "can I buy one for home?"

03:46 The welding analogy: trained engineers are MORE afraid, not less

04:17 The helium plasma jet example — even "gentle" plasmas have safety considerations

04:59 OSHA and FDA ozone limits depend on jet size

05:15 What "safely" really means: which plasma, which application, which people?

05:55 The same logic applies to lasers, pharmaceuticals, and ethanol

06:24 Wrap-up — drop your "Can Plasma?" questions below

If you work in plasma applications, medical devices, industrial safety, or you're just curious whether you can buy one and play with it at home — this one's for you.

🔔 Subscribe for more in the "Can Plasma?" series: @gregfridman

#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #IndustrialSafety #Ozone #PlasmaEngineering #OSHA #FDA #MedicalDevices #SafetyEngineering

Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma make plastic stick better? Yes — and the more interesting question is whether it can make plastic stick WORSE. We cover both.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question — and the better question (stick worse?)

00:30 Two kinds of plastic: thermosets vs thermoplastics

00:55 A quick word on recyclability

01:16 How plasma activates a surface: breaking bonds, adding charges & oxygen groups

02:17 The water-drop test: hydrophobic vs hydrophilic surfaces

02:38 How long does the treatment last? (Everything depends on everything)

02:45 Why opening the chamber — or trucking a roll across the country — kills the effect

04:12 Corona treaters and the printing industry's naming quirk

04:38 The trickier question: can plasma make plastic stick WORSE?

04:54 Why most plastics are hydrophobic to begin with

05:32 Plasma polymerization: depositing a hydrophobic monomer

05:53 Medical applications: repelling blood and bacteria

06:45 The devil is in the details — analyze the whole process

07:20 Wrap-up — drop your "Can Plasma?" questions below

If you work in surface engineering, packaging, printing, medical devices, or adhesives — this one's for you.

🔔 Subscribe for more in the "Can Plasma?" series: @gregfridman

#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #SurfaceTreatment #PlasmaTreatment #Adhesion #MaterialsScience #CoronaTreatment #PlasmaChemistry #MedicalDevices

Next up in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma remove CO₂? Short answer: no — but the longer answer is way more interesting. Plasma can take CO₂ and turn it into things people actually want to buy.

In this episode I cover:

• Why "removing" CO₂ is the wrong framing — valorizing it is the real opportunity
• Making syngas: reacting CO₂ with methane to produce CO + H₂, a building block of the chemical industry
• Making alcohols from CO₂ and water — methanol, ethanol, and yes, actual vodka (one company sells plasma-produced vodka at a premium to climate-conscious buyers)
• Carbon suboxide (C₃O₂): a yellow-brown polymerizing powder you can make directly from diesel exhaust and use as soil filler or a construction material
• The surprising fact that hospital and university diesel backup generators are among the biggest CO₂ emitters in major cities — and what a trailer-sized plasma system parked next to one could do
• Why scale-up is hard, and why a "valorize, don't prohibit" regulatory approach might be the unlock

If you care about climate tech, plasma chemistry, or unconventional carbon capture pathways — this one's for you.

🔔 Subscribe for more in the "Can Plasma?" series: @gregfridman

#CanPlasma #PlasmaScience #CO2 #CarbonCapture #ClimateTech #PlasmaChemistry #Syngas #CarbonUtilization #ChemicalEngineering

Can non-equilibrium plasma help coagulate blood in people with hemophilia? That is a much harder question than it first appears.

Plasma can dry blood, cross-link biological material, and under some conditions thermally coagulate tissue. But hemophilia is not simply “blood that will not dry.” It involves missing or deficient clotting factors, which means the normal biochemical clotting cascade may not produce a stable clot.

In this video, I talk through why this is such an interesting scientific question, why the answer is not obvious, and why it could make a strong research project for someone interested in plasma medicine, coagulation biology, or hemophilia.

Can plasma be added to hospital laundry systems to make sheets, gowns, towels, and clothing not just clean — but potentially sterile?

In this video, I answer a viewer’s question about what plasma laundry might look like in a hospital environment. My basic idea is simple: add a plasma treatment step into the dryer cycle, right before drying. Plasma would not remove dirt or stains — that is still the job of washing — but it could significantly reduce bacteria, viruses, spores, mold, fungi, and other biological contaminants on fabrics.

I also talk about why this kind of system could be useful in hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare settings, why the benefits are potentially tremendous, and why regulatory hurdles may be one reason we do not already see plasma dryers everywhere.

I also share a short story from COVID-19, when we built a plasma-based system for disinfecting PPE such as masks, goggles, face shields, and gowns.

Can plasma replace laundry? No.

Could plasma make laundry much safer? Maybe.

Can plasma coagulate blood? Yes — but the real answer depends on the kind of plasma, the kind of bleeding, and the medical situation.

In this video, I talk about how plasma can be used to help control bleeding, from established thermal plasma tools used in electrosurgery to newer approaches involving sparks, dielectric barrier discharges, and plasma jets. We also get into why blood coagulation is so sensitive to oxidation, and why plasma’s reactive chemistry can accelerate the process.

I also share the story of how a DARPA “Battlefield 2030” presentation — and one lucky lunch during graduate school — helped launch my career in plasma medicine.

Topics covered:

* Can plasma coagulate blood?

* Thermal plasma and electrosurgery

* Cold plasma, sparks, DBDs, and plasma jets

* Intrinsic and extrinsic coagulation cascades

* Plasma oxidation chemistry

* Blood coagulation, sterilization, and wound healing

* How DARPA helped shape early plasma medicine research

Plasma is not magic, but it is a powerful tool. In medicine, it may help stop bleeding, reduce microbial contamination, and support wound healing — depending on how it is used.

Can plasma surface treatment help with metal 3D printing?

In this video, I respond to a viewer question about whether plasma could be used as a DIY surface treatment method for metal additive manufacturing. We talk about metal powder bed fusion, wire-based metal printing, oxide layers, powder cleaning, plasma charging effects, hydrogen plasma, nitrogen/hydrogen mixtures, and whether plasma could realistically improve layer adhesion or replace laser sintering.

The short answer: plasma may have some niche uses in metal 3D printing, especially in powder preparation or oxide reduction, but it is not an obvious DIY add-on. Metal powders are tiny, reactive, and easily disturbed, and plasma systems involve high voltage, gas chemistry, and safety challenges.

If you have a specific idea for using plasma in metal 3D printing, leave it in the comments. I would love to discuss it.

Topics covered:

• Plasma surface treatment
• Metal 3D printing
• Powder bed fusion
• Wire-based metal additive manufacturing
• Oxide removal
• Hydrogen plasma
• DIY plasma safety
• Plasma jets and metal surfaces

#Plasma #Metal3DPrinting #AdditiveManufacturing #SurfaceTreatment #Engineering #3DPrinting #MaterialsScience #ColdPlasma

Can plasma treat cancer?

The short answer is: maybe, but not yet as a standard medical treatment. Plasma oncology is a real and promising research field, but it is still mostly in the preclinical and early clinical research stage.

In this video, I talk about how plasma could be used in cancer treatment, including direct plasma treatment of tumors, plasma-treated liquids, immune system activation, and possible applications for surface-accessible cancers such as melanoma or certain lung and esophageal cancers.

I also explain why “cancer” is not one disease, why treatment depends heavily on tumor type and location, and why plasma may be easier to apply to some cancers than others.

Topics covered:

* What plasma oncology is

* Direct plasma treatment of tumors

* Plasma-treated water, saline, and biological fluids

* Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species

* Why plasma may affect cancer cells differently than healthy cells

* Immune response and local tumor treatment

* Why this is promising but not yet routine medicine

Plasma medicine is still a young field, but the results so far are fascinating.

If you have questions about plasma, cancer treatment research, or plasma medicine in general, leave them in the comments.

Can you rotate or control a pulsed plasma using a magnetic field? And what happens if the pulse is only about 100 nanoseconds long?

In this video, I respond to a viewer question about gliding arcs, pulsed plasmas, magnetic fields, and whether it is possible to control ignition, reignition, and arc motion on very short timescales.

I walk through the basic sequence of atmospheric-pressure discharge formation: electron avalanche, streamer, spark, and arc. Then I explain different ways to influence or steer plasma, including gas flow, magnetic fields, electrode geometry, pressure gradients, laser or electron-beam pre-ionization, and even acoustic pressure waves.

The key point: at 100 nanoseconds, you may not really have a fully developed arc yet. You are likely still in the avalanche, streamer, or early spark regime, depending on pressure, gas composition, electrode spacing, and power supply behavior.

This gets into the tricky but fascinating world of fast pulsed plasmas, where the discharge does not always behave like a visible thermal arc.

#plasma #arcplasma #glidingarc #pulsedplasma #physics #engineering #science