Dielectric barrier discharge plasma for nanomaterials: Fabrication, modification and analytical applications

Recently, blooming studies of nanomaterials have attracted great interest of scientists for developing diverse applications in analytical chemistry. Among the various methods available today for nanomaterials synthesis, the ones by use of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma are relatively new, which is a typical low-temperature atmospheric pressure non-thermal plasma, composed of abundant active free radicals, high-energy electrons and excited species. With a series of unique advantages of being prone to chemical reactions, low power consumption, simple construction and atmospheric operation at room temperature, the DBD plasma technology has been widely used in the synthesis and modification of various nanomaterials. This review first highlights the recent updates on DBD plasma-based synthesis and modification of nanomaterials; then, the applications are summarized concerning plasma-synthesized nanomaterials and DBD plasma in analytical chemistry; and finally, further applications are prospected for DBD plasma-assisted synthesis of nanomaterials and related analytical chemistry. • The recent advances of DBD in nanomaterial synthesis are reviewed. • The recent advances of DBD in nanomaterial modification are reviewed. • DBD-prepared nanomaterials in analytical application were summarized. • Recent application of DBD for atomic spectrometry was summarized. • The current challenges and future prospects of this topic are discussed.