Optimization of Precursor Injection in an Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet System

Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (AP PECVD) of thin films is a recently emerged technology, showing important advantages in comparison with the traditional and well established low pressure plasma enhanced deposition methods. The main benefit of AP-PECVD is the potential of cost efficient in-line production without expensive and bulky vacuum equipment. In this work, an innovative AP plasma jet system is investigated which serves as a pilot system for industrial scale equipment, the VITO PlasmaLine®. Applications include moisture/oxygen diffusion barriers as well as grease barriers, UV curing of coatings or chemical activation of a surface. For industrial application a high throughput (~ 100-1000 m/min) is critical in order to compete with conventional techniques, such as wet chemical coating. Barrier coating deposition by AP-PECVD on polymer substrates has been demonstrated to be superior to wet chemical coating, with less consumption of precursor material [1], though many technical challenges remain to obtain the desired (dynamic) growth rates. The pilot equipment utilizes a 0.5 mm double slit configuration with 1000-2000 W power input at a frequency of 40-50 kHz with N2 as the primary carrier gas. By utilizing the plasma afterglow remote from the source, uniform surface treatment can be achieved despite the filamentary discharge in the slits. Deposition on the electrodes is prevented by injection of precursor into the jet and because of the remote nature of the plasma source the thermal load on the substrate is minimized, making it ideally suited for treatment of polymers and paper. A key area for improvement and upscaling of the pilot system for industrial application is optimization of gaseous and liquid (aerosol) precursor injection. To this end, extensive characterization of the plasma jet is undertaken, including current-voltage, fast imaging and optical emission and absorption measurements, with focus on the dynamics of gaseous and aerosol precursor particles in the jet. For optimum control over the gas distribution and precursor injection, Computational Fluid Dynamic models are presented in conjunction with the experimental work

Efficiency and conversion optimisation of tubular vortex flow stabilised microwave plasma reactors

Quantum Matter and Optic

Resolving discharge parameters from atomic oxygen emission

A method is proposed to spatially resolve discharge parameters from experimental measurements of emission intensity and 1D numerical simulations including an O atom collisional-radiative model. The method can be used for different plasmas and conditions. Here, contracted microwave discharges for CO2 conversion are studied at intermediate to high pressures (100–300 mbar). Radial profiles of electron density (ne) are used as input in the model and corrected to successfully simulate the measured Gaussian profiles of emission intensity of the 777 nm transition (I777). As a result, radially-resolved parameters inaccessible in experiments, such as ne, power density (Pabs), electron temperature (Te), electric field and reaction rates, are numerically-obtained for several conditions. ne and Pabs approximately follow Gaussian profiles that are broader than that of I777. For pressures below 150 mbar, the difference in full width at half maximum is typically a factor 1.6. This consists in a phenomenon of optical contraction, which is due to concave profiles of O molar fraction and Te. The implications of the simulated profiles on the study of plasmas for CO2 conversion are discussed and it is shown that these profiles allow to explain high reactor performances at low pressures

Flame bands: CO + O chemiluminescence as a measure of gas temperature

Carbon monoxide flame band emission (CO+O → CO2+hV) in CO2 microwave plasma is quantified by obtaining absolute calibrated emission spectra at various locations in the plasma afterglow while simultaneously measuring gas temperatures using rotational Raman scattering. Comparison of our results to literature reveals a contribution of O2 Schumann-Runge UV emission at T &gt; 1500 K. This UV component likely results from the collisional exchange of energy between CO2(1B) and O2. Limiting further analysis to T &lt; 1500 K, we demonstrate the utility of CO flame band emission by analyzing afterglows at different plasma conditions. We show that the highest energy efficiency for CO production coincides with an operating condition where very little heat has been lost to the environment prior to ∼3 cm downstream, while simultaneously, T ends up below the level required to effectively freeze in CO. This observation demonstrates that, in CO2 plasma conversion, optimizing for energy efficiency does not require a sophisticated downstream cooling method.</p

The influence of partial surface discharging on the electrical characterization of DBDs

The determination of internal electrical discharge parameters, such as plasma current and burning voltage, in dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) relies on an equivalent circuit based on series capacitances for the discharge gap and dielectric material. An effective dielectric capacitance for the discharge can be obtained from Q-V diagrams, also called Lissajous figures, during discharging, which may not be a constant for a given DBD geometry. It has been shown experimentally that microdischarges, which can consist of narrow channels in either diffuse or filamentary form, may not fully cover the available discharge area. Here, we report measurements of the effective dielectric capacitance as a function of applied voltage amplitude in a DBD plasma jet system operating in N2 and derive equations to determine the conductively transferred charge, burning voltage and the proportion of the electrode surface over which discharging occurs when the effective dielectric capacitance is not equal to the dielectric capacitance of the complete electrode area

Dielectric barrier discharges revisited: the case for mobile surface charge

We propose a mechanism to explain many features of the multi-filament dielectric barrier discharge: while part of the charge deposited during previous discharge cycles is immobile on the dielectric over time periods of seconds, the larger fraction of the deposited charge must be mobile on time-scales of hundreds of ns. For alumina, we estimate that a sheet resistance of 3 MΩ sq-1 is consistent with the multi-filament discharge; an increase in conductivity of at least 12 orders of magnitude. The existence of this type of plasma-induced surface conductivity could prove relevant in modeling a wide range of plasma devices, in addition to DBD

The relation between the production efficiency of nitrogen atoms and the electrical characteristics of a dielectric barrier discharge

In a nitrogen plasma jet, atomic nitrogen is the longest lived radical species and, through recombination, gives rise to highly reactive excited nitrogen species. In this paper, the atomic nitrogen concentration in the effluent of a nitrogen-fed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is determined by using direct 2D imaging of the visible FPS emission. The relationship between radical production and the electrical characteristics of the discharge is assessed by making use of an electrical model which assumes only a part of the electrode area is discharged every half-cycle. For the pure nitrogen jet used here, the specific energy input per nitrogen atom is found to be 320 ± 20 eV atom-1, comparable to the specific energy for other atomic nitrogen sources in the literature. It is shown that the production efficiency of atomic nitrogen does not depend on the amplitude of the applied voltage of the DBD and any increase in radical production is due to an increase of the electrode area covered by the discharge, i.e. an increase in the number of microdischarges