> bacteria are killed off really quickly by them because they lack a cell wall, without destroying human cells.
CORRECTION: I mixed up my terminology here. Bacteria have a cell wall (as do plants), human cells have a cell membrane[0][1]. But our cell membrane, as well as the cell wall of plant cells, are better at keeping the plasma ions out than the bacterial cell wall. In fact, the reason high plasma doses trigger apoptosis is because we actually use plasma ions as a cellular communication channel, IIRC. Would be hard to do that if our cells weren't protected against free plasma ions, right?
So the point still stands that bacteria die from plasma ion bombardment at doses that are harmless to human and plant cells.
CORRECTION: I mixed up my terminology here. Bacteria have a cell wall (as do plants), human cells have a cell membrane[0][1]. But our cell membrane, as well as the cell wall of plant cells, are better at keeping the plasma ions out than the bacterial cell wall. In fact, the reason high plasma doses trigger apoptosis is because we actually use plasma ions as a cellular communication channel, IIRC. Would be hard to do that if our cells weren't protected against free plasma ions, right?
So the point still stands that bacteria die from plasma ion bombardment at doses that are harmless to human and plant cells.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_wall#Bacterial_cell_walls
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_membrane