The Combination of Plasma-Processed Air (PPA) and Plasma-Treated Water (PTW) Causes Synergistic Inactivation of Candida albicans SC5314
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript describes the disinfectant treatment of candida albicans by plasma processed air and plasma treated water and their combination. The possible antagonistic, additive and synergistic effects of different combinations of treatments are listed. The result of the research is quite interesting and can be particularly useful for the food industry, as pointed out by the authors.
I believe that the structure of the manuscript is correct: the introduction describes enough the problem and the research work motivations, the materials and methods are well described, the results are quite well presented. For this reason, I suggest the publication of this manuscript as it is.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a study of the combined effect of plasma-treated air and plasma-treated water for fungicidal purposes, in relation to food industry. Despite the fact that not much effort has been put in elucidating the mechanisms of the observed action, I recommend the publication of the paper, because the combination of the two methods is anyway interesting and worth being disseminated. However, the following points ned to be addressed:
1) Line 72: Why do the authors use the abbreviation PPA for plasma-treated air, instead of PTA?
2) Lines 72-73: Why do the authors use the abbrevation PTW instead of the much more widespread PAW (plasma-activated water)? I suggest to avoid the proliferation of names and abbreviations.
3) While I am not aware of other studies regarding the combined effect of plasma-activated air and plasma-activated water on C. albicans, there have certainly been other studies concerning the use of plasma-activated water, contrary to what stated by the authors on page 2, lines 76-77. An example is: Laurita R, et al, Chemical analysis of reactive species and antimicrobial activity of water treated by nanosecond pulsed DBD air plasma, Clinical Plasma Medicine 3, 53–61 (2015), but there are certainly others. The authors should make a search for relevant literature on this subject and cite it.
4) Throughout the introduction the authors refer to the problem of biofilm formation in food industry. However, the method described in section 2.1 does not lead to proper biofilm formation. So, what is the relevance of the present experiment to the actual problem being addressed?
5) Line 107: The authors refer in the introduction to low-temperature plasmas. However, they claim that their process gas is heated to 4000 K. If this surprisingly high temperature is confirmed (how is this measured, by the way?), I think that we are more on the side of thermal plasmas. Please discuss this issue.
6) The lettering in fig.1 is far too small, and completely unreadable.
7) Line 115: What is the meaning of "97 % of the PPA produced remained compressed air, so that only 3 % was functionalized"? Does the air flow remain under high pressure during treatment? In any case, I don't see how 97% of the air can remain at high pressure and the other 3% not. Furthermore, how are these percentages evaluated? Since the paper is quite short, I think that it would be worthwhile to describe the plasma production process in detail, including the issues related to microwave coupling to the plasma, so as to allow other scholars to repeat the experiment.
8) Lines 113-117: How are reactive species in the gas phase measured? Please describe the measurements in detail.
9) Line 159: The use of the asterisk as multiplication symbol in formulas is deprecated. Also, the reference should not be given near to the formula, but in the main text. Furthermore, why do the authors cite a book in German? Are there no English references explaining this technique?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The topic is really interesting with interesting results. Some comments for consideration are given below:
1) The novelty must be further highlighted in text (Introduction).
2) The important figure 1 is completely misreadable. The font must be increased.
3) The Results and Discussion section is poorly analyzed. Only 4 Refs, while the other 32 were in Introduction and Materials-Methods. Authors should drastically improve this part.
4) Conclusions need re-writting.
5) There are many typos in the text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Accept as it is.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
