When discharge plasma is in contact with liquid, the plasma-liquid interface provides a powerful reaction zone for many physical and chemical processes induced by the plasma-liquid interactions. A great number of applications take advantage of this highly active zone of plasma-liquid interface, such as plasma medicine, element analysis, and nanomaterials formation. The nanomaterials formation from plasma-liquid interactions is some kind of a modified electrochemical deposition, called plasma electrochemical method, but it is not the same to the latter, and it has some distinct characteristics, for instance, a gaseous plasma electrode instead of a solid electrode. Since there are several advantages for the plasma-liquid based nanomaterials formation, such as high synthesis speed, simplicity in device, compared to a solution-based one, nanomaterials synthesis from plasma-liquid interactions attracts much attention recently. In this talk, we give a review of the plasma electrochemical synthesis of nanomaterials. Additionally, we survey the basic processes in the plasma-liquid interface and the bulk solution, the role of these processes play in nanomaterials formation, and the current state of plasma electrochemical synthesis of nanomaterials. The technical challenges to future research on plasma electrochemical synthesis of nanomaterials are also discussed.

The work was partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 11405144), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No: 20720150022).