The project is a plasma characterisation study for two types of plasma sources: (1) plasma jet, (2) pin-to-water electrode plasma system. The plasma characterisation consists of the determination of the plasma temperatures (electron and gas temperature), electron density, reactive species densities (O3, OH, O, NO) and excited species densities by means of emission and absorption spectroscopy. Both plasma sources will be used for (1) bacterial inactivation in dry environment, (2) decontamination of liquids. The project frames within a joint PhD Ghent University - HuaZhong University (China)