Study on ozone treatment of soil for agricultural application of surface dielectric barrier discharge

Abstract

Abstract Recently, application of plasma technologies to the agricultural field has attracted much interest because residual pesticides and excessive nitrogen oxides contained in plants, soil, and groundwater have become a serious issue worldwide. Since almost all of the atmospheric discharge plasma generates ozone, the effects of ozone are among the key factors for their agricultural applications. We have proposed the use of ozone generated using surface barrier discharge plasma for soil disinfection or sterilization. In this work, the ozone consumption coefficient and diffusion coefficient in soil were measured by the ultraviolet absorption method. The pH(H 2 O) and amount of nitrogen nutrient in soil after ozone diffusion treatment were studied and plant growth was observed simultaneously. The effect of ozone treatment on the amount of DNA in soil was also investigated and compared with that determined from the obtained ozone consumption coefficient.