our future is electric
enabling a cleaner world based on breakthroughs in plasma science and technology
We are a high-tech engineering team
AAPlasma is focused on the research and development of advanced oxidation processes. We frequently partner with industry to help them develop solutions specific to their needs. Our technical capabilities are:
Mechanical and electrical engineering
Gas phase and surface diagnostics
Virology and microbiology (in air, water, or on surfaces)
Product development and product prototyping (CAD/CAM, FDM and SLA 3D printing, CNC, etc)
CFD modeling and fluid flow simulation
Analytical chemistry
Latest news
Our core technology platforms
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Non-equilibrium “cold” plasma engineering
Our focus is plasmas. We develop industrially-viable systems, using electric discharges, to utilize electricity as a chemical catalyst. Plasma is one of our core platforms to help you solve whatever challenges your industry faces.
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Multi-wavelength gas and LED ultraviolet
While plasmas also generate UV, we have a special love for the existing off-the-shelf technologies, such as UV lamps and UV LEDs. Integrating plasma into your process can get tricky while UV is on the shelf. Perhaps utilizing UV may be easier. Let’s figure this one out!
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Bio/medical engineering
We are engineers, and we are working on improving the world around us. This includes biomedical applications of plasmas and UV sources for disinfection, wound treatment, clinical dermatology, etc; but this also includes food safety, industrial hygiene, and similar applications.
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Virology and microbiology
We work so much with bacteria and viruses that we separate this into our core platform. We don’t just kill them… We work on developing or evolving microbes to digest microplastics, help plants grow, and clean up our rivers from polutants.
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Environmental engineering
We have expertise in air cleaning, water treatment, soil remediation, and regeneration of filter media. Engineering for a cleaner environment is in our company's vision.
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High voltage electronics
We design, test, prototype, and mass-produce pulsed and DC high-voltage systems. Pulsed dielectric barrier discharges, pulsed coronas, and gliding arcs are our specialties.
FAQs
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Plasma is a state of matter along with solids, liquids, and gases. When a neutral gas is heated such that some of the electrons are freed from the atoms or molecules, it changes state and becomes a plasma. It consists of a partially-ionized gas containing ions, electrons, and neutral atoms. Read more on Wikipedia.
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Curiously, electric plasma (what we use) and blood plasma (the fluid that supports your life) are both called "plasma". There is no similarity between the two aside from the name. There is a curious story about it, and you can watch Greg Fridman diving into the history of how the name came about on YouTube.
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Lightning! Fluorescent light bulbs contain plasma that produces light. Stars, such as the sun, are hot balls of plasma. Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis. Plasma TV displays use small cells of plasma to illuminate images. Oh, and most of the universe is made up of ionized gas—plasma!
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On earth, we are surrounded by air, containing mostly nitrogen and oxygen. Oxygen is electronegative, so it traps electrons, preventing the natural formation of plasma. We use pulsed high voltage to create extreme conditions in the air where the plasma formation is favorable.
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Plasma, generated in humid air, contains a high concentration of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). ROS and RNS (together "RONS") are potent antiviral and antimicrobial agents that can help us disinfect air, sanitize fresh produce, and clean various surfaces, to name a few.
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We are a team of expert engineers who help companies develop an integration of plasma systems into their processes. We partner with the industry to help them figure out a way to implement advanced oxidation processing into their environment. As a small and agile team, we are known for being cost and resource-efficient while delivering the proposed solution to our customers quickly. If you are interested in how we could help you, please feel free to Contact us.
How we can help you
AAPlasma engineers will work with your engineering and product development teams to assist you with integrating advanced oxidation processing into your environment. We follow five simple steps, and we can move through them quickly and efficiently:
Develop the research strategy together.
Help with engineering design (for manufacturing), 3D CAD, and CFD simulations.
Perform validation testing.
Build a pre-commercial prototype (β-prototype).
Assist with locating the right manufacturing partner and scale-up.
Read more on our Development page.
Our story: plasmas are fascinating!
In 2017, we started AAPlasma working evenings and weekends at a small rented workbench in Warminster, PA with a single goal: do our absolute best and work our hardest to make the world around us better the only way we know how—plasmas!
This vision was driven by co-founders Greg Fridman and Charles Bailey who began working together at Drexel University in the 2010s. There they saw that Greg’s top-of-the-field expertise in plasmas and Charles’ enduring desire to make world-changing products using Applied Atmospheric Plasma technologies could create something special. Hence AAPlasma was born.
After years of hard work, Charles’ perseverance paid off, and in 2019, Charles and Greg both started their full-time journey with AAPlasma in what seemed like a huge 400 sqft office at the Pennovation Works incubator.
Less than 2 years later, the COVID-19 pandemic forced AAPlasma to move nearly 100% of our R&D activities in-house, resulting in the need to move to a vast 2,000 sqft office in 2021. In the year or so since our move, our team and our functions have continued to expand rapidly. Now, AAPlasma is moving all operations into a warehouse, where we will have the space to continue to grow.
Our story is still being written, expect more news as our company grows.
Our vision
Change the world
We want to change the world for the better, and we know that electric discharge (plasma) technologies can do that. At AAPlasma, our goal is to make our systems cheaper, cleaner, and more accessible, so that we can pave the way for a more sustainable and equitable future free of petrochemicals.
“Our future is electric”—J.P. Morgan
We believe that—with the right implementation strategy—electricity can replace petrochemicals. We aim to identify, develop, and refine the technologies that can pave the way for that future. Our goal is to make these systems affordable and efficient enough for large-scale adoption so that we can leave fossil fuels in the past where they belong.
A local company with a global perspective
We know that by investing in our community, we are making our country stronger and our world better. AAPlasma is committed to supporting local businesses, giving back to our community, and creating local jobs so that the future of plasma remains in our home town—Philadelphia.
“When we started AAPlasma, we wanted to make a company where we could enable a positive change in the world while going to a job that makes us happy. We operate AAPlasma with those goals in mind. We work every day to make sure that our employees, our partners, and our clients all feel the same way when they work with us.”—Greg and Charles
They’re talking…
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Todor Raykov, Director of Venture Services, NextFab
Dr. Fridman and his team are outstanding innovators. I worked with them on their NextFab RAPID Hardware Accelerator project and I was very impressed by the progress they made despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fridman's team pulled through and successfully created a functioning prototype that they later modified for a field demo.
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Kyle Strache, Founder and Partner, Vos-IP, LLC
Working with the AAPlasma team is a lawyer’s dream. Greg, Charles, and the team are all sharp engineers, who develop unique plasma technologies that are based not just in fiction, but in functional reality to generate real world products.
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Dr. Mark Stibich, Founder and CSO, Xenex Healthcare Services
AAPlasma is in the top 5% of our Nation’s high-tech startups. The inventiveness and highly skilled engineering they use to advanced plasma technologies will lead to new electrical systems that are more efficient and adaptable.
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Daniel Strickland, CEO, Aqueduct Fluidics
Working with the AAPlasma team on developing a programmable biofluidic system for their research has been a rewarding experience! We look forward to many future productive collaborative engineering projects.
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Robert Geiger, Senoir Research Scientist, ClearSign Technologies Corp
Our discussions with the AAPlasma staff are very valuable to me. I see a strong potential in pulsed electric fields and in plasmas in the near future and I applaud AAPlasma for its tireless efforts in commercializing plasmas. I will continue supporting Dr. Fridman's team.
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Dr. Peter Friedman, Dermatologist, The Skin Center Dermatology Group
I have been working with Greg Fridman since 2014, initially, in his capacity as a Research Professor at the Nyheim Plasma Institute at Drexel University, and later as a leader in industry. Greg was a crucial part of a very fruitful, and still ongoing collaboration that led to the pioneering use of non-thermal plasma technology in dermatology. With Greg’s device design and prototype production, we could conduct successful first-ever, proof-of-concept clinical studies of non-thermal plasma treatment for a number of different skin conditions.
