# Applications of Plasma Produced with Electrical Discharges in Gases for Agriculture and Biomedicine
## 1 Introduction  
Many problems in agriculture and biomedicine are the result of the generation, distribution, and conversion of multiple forms of energy. They not only cause climate change, as a result of environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but are also the cause of many of diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, lung and skin cancers, and new variants of previously unknown viruses and bacteria and their accompanying diseases. Fighting these problems is the most important challenge of the 21 st century [1, 2, 3, 4].  
Agricultural and biomedical problems can be solved using plasma technology, which is still being exploited; ozone, UV radiation, and other excited and ionised plasma particles are used in disinfection and sterilisation processes, tissue treatment, and in healing processes. Some of these technologies are very mature, such as the treatment of drinking water, but they are still being used and developed along with technological advancements related to new materials and power electronics [5, 6, 7, 8, 9].  
Although the effectiveness of other technologies has been confirmed in applied research, and reactor prototypes have been demonstrated in conditions similar to real conditions, such technologies have not yet been implemented. The reason for this is probably due to the existence of proven non-plasma-based technologies, which are often cheaper but sometimes less effective and more harmful to the environment, e.g., the treatment of sewage of various origins, or the treatment of water in swimming pools using chlorine and its derivatives [10; 11].  
The application of plasma technologies, such as in the treatment of contaminated soils and their fumigation [12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21]; cultivation and storage of agricultural products and food [22; 23; 24; 25; 26]; removal of insects, fungi, and mould [27; 28]; sterilisation and disinfection of materials non-resistant to high temperatures [29; 30; 31; 32]; and living tissue treatment [33; 34; 35; 36; 37], have a chance to be implemented in the near future. This is because of their features, such as reliability, ability to conduct plasma processes at atmospheric pressure, energy selectivity and progress in the field of power electronics, which allow for the construction of more efficient, smaller, and cheaper power supply plasma reactors [7; 8; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45].  
Since the beginning of the 20 th century, research on plasma technologies has mainly been devoted to discharge physics as a source of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma, power supply systems for plasma reactors, and applications in drinking water treatment and air pollution control [46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59]; while, research into technologies relating to agriculture and medicine started in the current century [12; 14; 17; 19; 22; 23; 28; 32; 60; 61; 62; 63; 64; 65; 66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72]. This paper presents an overview of the applications of plasma technology in agriculture and biomedicine. Selected technologies using both thermal and non-thermal plasma, produced at atmospheric pressure, are presented.