Greg Fridman

Most skin creams can't get through your skin. The outer layer is basically a dense rubber membrane built to keep chemicals out. If a cream claims "active delivery," ask how. Plasma can actually open the door 👇 youtu.be/uvBPVr6Q1Vo

PhD me: tests a two-page table of ultra-pure gas combinations to find the best plasma disinfection. Result: plain humid room air wins. Half a year of work to learn the answer was the air I was breathing 👇 youtu.be/F0uruSh3OeQ

No bleach. No supply chain. No chemicals to store. A solar panel and a plasma unit can disinfect a wound, water, or vegetables in the field. Plasma doesn't need chemicals. It makes its own from air. youtu.be/MDHaDI5vZtU

You can't take your TIG welder to space. Shielding gas sprays molten metal everywhere. Charged metal droplets don't fall down. But in vacuum, two clean metal plates weld themselves on contact. Welding in space is a whole new field 👇 youtu.be/YANW86ouNoY

How we "remove" PFAS from drinking water today: 1. Catch it on activated carbon 2. Bury the carbon in a landfill 3. It leaches back into groundwater 4. Buy more carbon Plasma can destroy it instead 👇 youtu.be/_ypfXFvWUug

Gloriously Dumb Round 5: Existential & Absurd. → Make me funnier? No. → Fix the economy? YES (fusion is plasma) → End traffic? No → Better Mondays? Doubtful → Replace my alarm? Plasma-ball alarm clocks exist Dumbest question, biggest answer 👇 youtu.be/SYs2SNhRzTc

"Should I get a PhD?" No. Because you asked. If you really want one, answer 3 questions first: → Why do you want it? → What will you do with it? → Will you actually use it? youtu.be/Gh5DoRiyGUg

Iron oxide is rust. Aluminum oxide is ceramic. Plasma can turn the surface of a metal into the second one. It can also turn it into the first one if you're careless 👇 youtu.be/qm7x4W-k5Lg

Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics and broad-spectrum UV. In 25 years of plasma medicine research, no bacteria has ever been observed to develop resistance to plasma. Four attack modes at once. Hard to evolve past that. 👇 youtu.be/NUnp-QUc0k0

"Plasma can cool datacenters" is the LinkedIn take I keep getting. I have all the DBD ion wind components in my lab. I've played with them. A plasma cooling system also generates heat (from the power supply and from reactive species relaxing). youtu.be/_eQyMZS59Ps

Europe has Departments of Plasma at universities. The US tucks plasma inside electrical or mechanical engineering. Meanwhile every chip in every phone, every data center, every reshored fab needs plasma engineers on all 9 production layers. youtu.be/cW0H_97uFY0

"If you can see it and hear it, there's plasma." Walking that back today. Every microchip in your phone was carved by EUV plasma you cannot see. Industrial burner diagnostics run in deep UV and infrared. The most important plasmas are invisible 👇 youtu.be/vgZqO56FkOw

Every food processing facility I've visited: my eyes water within 30 seconds. That's chlorine bleach in the air. Plasma does the same disinfection job with different chemistry. It costs about 1-2 cents more per bag of spinach. youtu.be/uQvnx7JxTo0

"Plasma cooling for data centers" I keep seeing this claim. I don't understand how it works yet. Everything ends in heat. New ep on non-equilibrium plasma today digs into the timing tricks that would need to underlie any such system 👇 youtu.be/2ehgCScpDsM

Can plasma kill only bad cells and leave good cells alone? Plasma isn't selective by nature. But the environment can be: → E. coli sits on surface, good soil bacteria live deep → Cancer cells divide fast, normal cells don't youtu.be/wk7tnzsIA7w

Best plasma additive for sterilization: vodka. Not marketing. Ethanol boosts OH radical production. Methanol is toxic. Pure ethanol + O2 = flame. 45%+ = flammable. 40% ethanol is the sweet spot. Discovered by Russians. Obviously. youtu.be/7ngG7NsVy-s

Can plasma make you young and beautiful? Skin surface: yes. Reduces wrinkles, stimulates collagen, boosts blood flow, etc. Aging organs, cognition, underlying conditions: no. My opinion: Enjoy the crap out of the one life you have. youtu.be/KSTpUitxS78

Can plasma make plants grow faster? Yes. Story: my dead plant went in the trash. Our secretary pulled it out and told my students to water it with "magic water". A week later, it was alive. I stopped laughing and chased the mechanism. Turns out real 👇 youtu.be/I60XIkTbsV4

My career in plasma medicine started with a DARPA cartoon (made by EA Sports). Soldier gets shot. Robot helicopter arrives. Purple light hits the wound. Wound closes. Our first funding was to answer: is any of that real? Turns out yes. Pocket device. 👇 youtu.be/EFuWkFR-gGs

Biggest competitor to plasma food-sterilization tech? Nothing. You go to a farmer's market, take home produce, and wash it in your sink. Costs nothing. Works. Beating "nothing" on unit economics is hard. That's why plasma hasn't taken over 👇 youtu.be/5p-WgSUoSyk