ROPLASS supplies DCSBD atmospheric-pressure plasma systems used by European research institutes and water-technology partners to modify photocatalysts and sorbents for wastewater treatment — enhancing the removal of pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, dyes, personal-care products and other emerging organic contaminants from municipal WWTP effluents, aquaculture streams and drinking-water sources.
DCSBD plasma achieves in seconds — in ambient air or defined gas atmospheres — what conventional catalyst preparation methods (hydrothermal synthesis, high-temperature calcination, wet-chemical grafting) require hours and toxic solvents to accomplish. The result: a new class of low-OPEX, low-CAPEX water-treatment materials with tailored surface chemistry (amide, carboxyl, hydroxyl functional groups), tunable band alignment and improved catalytic activity — validated on real wastewater matrices, not only synthetic model solutions.
How DCSBD plasma modifies photocatalysts for pharmaceutical degradation in wastewater
Graphitic carbon nitride (gC₃N₄) is one of the most promising visible-light photocatalysts for wastewater treatment, but its intrinsic activity is limited by low surface area and poor charge separation. Short DCSBD plasma treatment in ambient air introduces amide and carboxyl functional groups on the gC₃N₄ surface — verified by XPS and DFT modelling — that improve visible-light absorption and shift the conduction band alignment for enhanced sulfamethoxazole and antibiotic degradation [Zažímal et al., Journal of Materials Chemistry A 13(19), 2025; Applied Surface Science 699, 2025].
The same principle extends to TiO₂/MXene composites (Ti₃C₂Tx — work function tuned by O₂ plasma [Vida et al., Nanoscale 15(3), 2023]) and to novel Fenton-like catalysts including α-FeOOH-intercalated MXene [Atri et al., Catalysis Today 470, 2026], MXene-decorated spinel oxides [Atri et al., Chemical Engineering Journal 502, 2024] and iron-vanadate systems [Madhusudhan et al., Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers 13(8), 2026]. On real wastewater effluents from municipal WWTPs and pharmaceutical manufacturing streams, plasma-modified gC₃N₄ delivered significantly higher removal of sulfamethoxazole and related emerging contaminants than the unmodified reference [Zažímal et al., Journal of Water Process Engineering 83, 2026].
How plasma-activated carbon sorbents remove pharmaceuticals from wastewater at low cost
Alongside photocatalytic degradation, sorbent-based removal remains the most economical route for pharmaceutical and organic pollutant elimination — but requires materials with high surface area, tunable surface chemistry and demonstrable stability on real matrices. ROPLASS plasma technology contributes to a low-cost family of carbon-based sorbents derived from agricultural waste (plum-pit biochar [Zažímal et al., Waste Disposal and Sustainable Energy, 2026], activated carbons from various pyrolysis routes [Imreová et al., Journal of Water Process Engineering 61, 2024]) and to graphene-oxide-based sorbents optimised for pharmaceutical adsorption [Roupcová et al., Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 237(10), 2026].
For electrochemical wastewater treatment, DCSBD atmospheric plasma also activates 3D-printed carbon electrodes and other carbon-based electrochemical platforms — enabling rapid, sensitive detection and removal of pharmaceuticals from complex real-world matrices [Kováč et al., ACS Omega 10(35), 2025; Svitková et al., Chemical Engineering Journal 500, 2024].
Solar and UV-driven plasma-catalyst systems for aquaculture and drinking-water disinfection
Beyond catalyst modification, ROPLASS technology has been used in full-system water-treatment studies at pilot scale. UVA- and solar-driven photocatalysis using rGO/TiO₂/polysiloxane composites (deposited on flexible substrates) achieves pathogen inactivation in recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) [Levchuk et al., Chemical Engineering Journal Advances 10, 2022], with comparative studies confirming the efficacy of the approach relative to conventional disinfection methods [Villar-Navarro et al., Solar Energy 227, 2021; Moreno-Andrés et al., Water Research 181, 2020].
For industrial-scale treatment of paint-factory wastewater, DCSBD-adjacent electrocoagulation technologies provide sustainable remediation with substantially lower chemical consumption than conventional coagulation-flocculation processes [Horváth et al., Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology 10(3), 2024]. A comprehensive review of plasma modification strategies for wastewater applications is provided in [Fatima et al., Journal of Water Process Engineering 77, 2025].