Surface modifications of biomaterial with different cold plasma reactors to improve cell adhesion

There is a growing trend in the engineering of biomaterials, focusing on surface modifications of biomaterials to improve their mechanical strength, corrosion resistance, and biological properties. Cold plasma treatment may improve biological properties of biomaterials for biomedical applications by enhancing their integration with host tissue. This study investigated the influence of different cold plasma treatments on the surface properties of a polysaccharides- -based biomaterial to improve cell adhesion to its surface. The samples were subjected to plasma treatment using three different reactors operating at atmospheric pressure: gliding arc discharge (GAD) reactor, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma jet, and DBD surface reactor. Next, surface chemistry of the biomaterial after plasma treatment was determined by ATR-FTIR analysis. Furthermore, a cell adhesion assay on the samples was carried out using normal human skin fibroblasts (BJ cell line). The attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared analysis (ATR- -FTIR) showed that new potential functional groups could be formed on the material surface after plasma treatment. However, plasma treatment of the samples did not enhance cell adhesion to the surface of the polysaccharides-based biomaterial. Thus, the obtained results indicate that plasma treatment using GAD reactor, DBD plasma jet, and DBD surface reactor was not effective for surface modification and cell responses.