Thermal structure of atmospheric pressure non-equilibrium plasmas

The thermal structure of a methane-fed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) and a atmospheric pressure glow-discharge (APG) has been extensively investigated in terms of time-averaged gas temperature profile between two parallel-plate electrodes separated by 1.0 mm. Emission spectroscopy of the rotational band of CH ((0, 0) A ²Δ→X ²Π:431 nm) was performed for this purpose. In order to minimize average temperature increase in the reaction field, DBD and APG were activated by 10 kHz with 2% duty cycle pulsed voltage (2 μs pulse width/100 μs interval). In DBD, temperature increase of a single microdischarge, on a time average, reached 200 K. It suddenly decreased below 100 K associated with the dark space formation near the dielectric barrier. Also, gas temperature in the surface discharge was fairly low because emission in these regions was limited within the initial stages of propagation (∼5 ns), whereas energy deposition would continue until microdischarge extinction; these facts implied that rotational temperature seemed to be far below the actual gas temperature in these regions. In APG, gas temperature was uniformly increased by positive column formation. In addition, a remarkable temperature increase due to negative glow formation was obtained only near the metallic electrode.

For practical interest, we also investigated the net temperature increase with high frequency operations (AC-80 kHz), which depends not only on plasma properties, but also various engineering factors such as flow field, external cooling conditions, and total input power. In DBD, gas temperature in the middle of gas gap was significantly increased with increasing input power because of poor cooling conditions. In APG, in contrast, gas temperature near the electrodes was significantly increased associated with negative glow formation.