| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology Division | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session PS+PB+SE-TuA |
| Session: | Atmospheric Pressure Plasmas |
| Presenter: | Vladimir Milosavljević, BioPlasma Research Group, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland |
| Authors: | V. Milosavljević, BioPlasma Research Group, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland M. Gulan, BioPlasma Research Group, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland L. Scally, BioPlasma Research Group, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland P.J. Cullen, BioPlasma Research Group, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Electrical discharges in gases have demonstrated a wide range of effects for material science and energy applications. Under both laboratory and industrial setups, such electrical discharges can produce a stable plasma. From both fundamental and applied purposes, such gaseous plasmas are well studied, the technology has found many applications. Recent interest has turned to operating such plasma under atmospheric conditions. The main advantage of the plasma discharge at atmospheric pressure over low-pressure plasma or high-pressure plasma, is that no reaction vessel is needed. However, with increasing gas pressures, the stability and reproducibility of the plasma discharge are significantly impacted. For atmospheric pressure, in order to obtain a stable plasma discharge in addition to the electrodes a dielectric barrier is required. The function of this dielectric is to spread the electrical charge throughout the entire electrode in order to create multiple conducting paths for the discharges to occur. This is the foundation of the Dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD). One or both electrodes in DBD could be covered by a dielectric material which serves as an electric polarizer, and helps maintain a low gas temperature. Over the course of its life, for any DBD system, the biggest disadvantage is the dielectric contamination. In most cases, this dielectric is a polymer, and polymers are generally fragile materials. Therefore, developing a plasma system that does not require a dielectric, and has a reproducible and stable electrical discharge at atmospheric pressure would offer new system designs and applications.
This work presents a pulsing plasma system (PPS) which can run at atmospheric pressure under various external parameters. The system has a planar configuration with a bottom (grounded) flat electrode and a top multiple pin electrode (high voltage). The design of this PPS allows several parameters to be modified, such as: discharge frequency (30-125 kHz), duty cycle (1-100%), duty cycle frequency (100-3000 Hz), peak-to-peak voltage (up 60 kV), power (up to 700 W), distance between electrodes (up to 55mm), and treatment time (unlimited). The new plasma system allows an increase in the surface-plasma interaction selectivity and to reduce plasma induced damages to surfaces. The electron properties and gas radical density generated for the system under such control parameters are reported.
This work was funded by the Dublin Institute of Technology and PlasmaLeap Technologies, Ireland.