Surface Treatment of Polyethylene Terephthalate Film Using Atmospheric Pressure Glow Discharge in Air

Non-thermal plasmas under atmospheric pressure are of great interest in polymer surface processing because of their convenience, effectiveness and low cost. In this paper, the treatment of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film surface for improving hydrophilicity using the non-thermal plasma generated by atmospheric pressure glow discharge (APGD) in air is conducted. The discharge characteristics of APGD are shown by measurement of their electrical discharge parameters and observation of light-emission phenomena, and the surface properties of PET before and after the APGD treatment are studied using contact angle measurement, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It is found that the APGD is homogeneous and stable in the whole gas gap, which differs from the commonly filamentary dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). A short time (several seconds) APGD treatment can modify the surface characteristics of PET film markedly and uniformly. After 10 s APGD treatment, the     

Comparison of discharge characteristics and methylene blue degradation through a direct-current excited plasma jet with air and oxygen used as working gases

Through using a direct-current driven plasma jet operated underwater, degradation of methylene blue(MB) is investigated with air and oxygen used as working gases. With a low power voltage,a plasma plume extends from the needle electrode, which is purple in air. It turns pink after it bridges the two electrodes. During the process, oxygen plasma remains white. Discharge operates in a pulsed mode or a continuous one, which depends on the magnitude of power voltage. For the pulsed mode, oxygen discharge has a shorter plume and a higher pulse frequency than air discharge under the same power voltage. For the same current of the continuous mode, both power and gap voltages of oxygen discharge are higher than those of air discharge. Moreover, MB degradation efficiency increases with increasing power voltage or initial concentration of MB solution. Compared with air discharge, oxygen discharge has a higher degradation efficiency with the same power voltage and treatment time. The pulsed oxygen discharge with power voltage of about 6.5 k V has the highest efficiency in degrading MB dye, reaching approximately 85.8% after 10 min treatment. As a comparison, after 10 min treatment in air discharge, the highest degradation efficiency is 63.7%, which appears in the continuous mode at a power voltage of 10.6 kV. Besides, optical spectra from the discharges are also compared for the two types of working gases.     

Effects of Gas Flow Rate on the Discharge Characteristics of a DC Excited Plasma Jet

A direct current(DC) source excited plasma jet consisting of a hollow needle anode and a plate cathode has been developed to form a diffuse discharge plume in ambient air with flowing argon as the working gas.Using optical and electrical methods,the discharge characteristics are investigated for the diffuse plasma plume.Results indicate that the discharge has a pulse characteristic,under the excitation of a DC voltage.The discharge pulse corresponds to the propagation process of a plasma bullet travelling from the anode to the cathode.It is found that,with an increment of the gas flow rate,both the discharge plume length and the current peak value of the pulsed discharge decrease in the laminar flow mode,reach their minima at about1.5 L/min,and then slightly increase in the turbulent mode.However,the frequency of the pulsed discharge increases in the laminar mode with increasing the argon flow rate until the argon flow rate equals to about 1.5 L/min,and then slightly decreases in the turbulent mode.     

Compact High-Velocity Atmospheric Pressure Dielectric Barrier Plasma Jet in Ambient Air

In this paper,a non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma jet at high streaming velocity operating with ambient air is highlighted.In the present technological approach,the employment of air poses a significant challenge.The high oxygen concentration in air results in a reduced concentration of reactive species in combination with a short species lifetime.The plasma jet assembly presented here contains a special dielectric barrier with a high secondary emission coefficient.In this way,the electron density and in turn the density of reactive species is increased.In addition,the plasma jet assembly is equipped with a short electrode.This leads to a higher voltage across the discharge gap and in turn to an increased density of reactive plasma species.The plasma jet is formed within and emitted by a small conical nozzle.A high-speed gas flow with gas velocity of 340 m/s was achieved at the end of the nozzle.In the jet the concentration of toxic and unwanted neutral plasma species like O_3 or NO_x is significantly reduced because of the shorter residence time within the plasma.The range of short-lived active plasma species is in turn considerably enhanced.The jet efficiency and action range measured through the oxidation of a test surface were determined by measuring the increase of surface tension of a polypropylene substrate via contact angle measurements after plasma treatment.Numerical modeling of the plasma plume indicates that oxygen atoms are in fact the main active species in the plasma plume.     

Low Pressure DC Glow Discharge Air Plasma Surface Treatment of Polyethylene (PE) Film for Improvement of Adhesive Properties

The present work deals with the change in surface properties of polyethylene (PE) film using DC low pressure glow discharge air plasma and makes it useful for technical applications. The change in hydrophilicity of the modified PE film surface was investigated by measuring contact angle and surface energy as a function of exposure time. Changes in the morphological and chemical composition of PE films were analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The improvement in adhesion was studied by measuring T-peel and lap-shear strength. The results show that the wettability and surface energy of the PE film has been improved due to the introduction of oxygen-containing polar groups and an increase in surface roughness. The XPS result clearly shows the increase in concentration of oxygen content and the formation of polar groups on the polymer surface. The AFM observation on PE film shows that the roughness of the surface increased due to plasma treatment. The above morphological and chemical changes enhanced the adhesive properties of the PE film surfaces, which was confirmed by T-peel and lap-shear tests.     

Argon plume transition from a hollow swell to a diffuse swell with increasing amplitude of a trapezoidal voltage

Atmospheric pressure plasma jets can generate a remote plasma plume, which usually presents a conical or cylindrical morphology. Despite a few morphologies being observed, efforts should be made to obtain more plume structures because streamer dynamics may be revealed from them. For this purpose, an argon plasma plume excited by a trapezoidal voltage is investigated, which presents two kinds of swells (a hollow swell and a diffuse swell) with increasing voltage amplitude (V_p). The results indicate that there are two positive discharges (D_p1 and D_p2) and one negative discharge (D_n) per voltage cycle for both of the swells. With increasing Vp, the inception voltage and discharge intensity increase for every positive discharge, while they decrease for the negative discharge. Fast photography reveals that the positive streamer (D_p2) leaves different tracks in the two swells, which are curved in the hollow swell and randomly branched in the diffuse swell. The different tracks of D_p2 are explained with the consideration of applied field strength and residual positive ions of D_p1. The existence of residual positive ions is finally verified from optical emission spectra.     

Investigation on the characteristics of an atmospheric-pressure microplasma plume confined inside a long capillary tube

An atmospheric-pressure microplasma plume of diameter 10 μm is generated inside a long tube. The length of the microplasma plume reaches as much as 2 cm. First, with the assistance of an air dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), the ignition voltage of the microplasma decreases from 40 kV to 23.6 kV. Second, although the current density reaches as high as (1.2−7.6)×10⁴ A cm ⁻² , comparable to the current density in transient spark discharge, the microplasma plume is non- thermal. Third, it is interesting to observe that the amplitude of the discharge current in a positive cycle of applied voltage is much lower than that in a negative cycle of applied voltage. Fourth, the electron density measured by the Stark broadening of Ar spectral line 696.5nm reaches as high as 3×10¹⁶ cm⁻³ , which yields a conductivity of the microplasma column of around 48 S m⁻¹ . In addition, the propagation velocity of the microplasma plume, obtained from light signals at different axial positions, ranges from 1×10⁵ m s ⁻¹ to 5×10 ⁵ m s⁻¹ . A detailed analysis reveals that the surface charges deposited on the inner wall exert significant influence on the discharge behavior of the microplasma.     

Enhanced by Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Pretreatment Irradiated by High-Intensity Pulsed Ion Beam

In order to develop a more economical pretreatment method for electroless nickel plating, a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma at atmospheric pressure was used to improve the hydrophilicity and adhesion of poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) nonwoven fabric. The properties of the PET nonwoven fabric including its liquid absorptive capacity (WA), aging behavior, surface chemical composition, morphology of the surface, adhesion strength, surface electrical resistivity and electromagnetic interference (EMI)- shielding effectiveness (SE) were studied. The liquid absorptive capacity (WA) increased due to the incorporation of oxygen-containing and nitrogen-containing functional groups on the surface of PET nonwoven fabric after DBD air-plasma treatment. The surface morphology of the nonwoven fibers became rougher after plasma treatment. Therefore, the surface was more prone to absorb tin sensitizer and palladium catalyst to form an active layer for the deposition of electroless nickel. SEM and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements indicated that a uniform coating of nickel was formed on the PET nonwoven fabric. The average EMI-SE of Ni-plating of PET nonwoven fabric maintained a relatively stable value (38.2 to 37.3 dB) in a frequency range of 50 to 1500 MHz. It is concluded that DBD is feasible for pretreatment of nonwoven fabric for electroless nickel plating to prepare functional material with good EMI-SE properties.     

Three modes of a direct-current plasma jet operated underwater to degrade methylene blue

A direct-current air plasma jet operated underwater presents three stable modes including an intermittently-pulsed discharge, a periodically-pulsed discharge and a continuous discharge with increasing the power voltage. The three discharge modes have different appearances for the plasma plumes. Moreover, gap voltage-current characteristics indicate that the continuous discharge is in a normal glow regime. Spectral lines from reactive species(OH, N_2, N_2~+, H_α,and O) have been revealed in the emission spectrum of the plasma jet operated underwater.Spectral intensities emitted from OH radical and oxygen atom increase with increasing the power voltage or the gas flow rate, indicating that reactive species are abundant. These reactive species cause the degradation of the methylene blue dye in solution. Effects of the experimental parameters such as the power voltage, the gas flow rate and the treatment time are investigated on the degradation efficiency. Results indicate that the degradation efficiency increases with increasing the power voltage, the gas flow rate or the treatment time. Compared with degradation in the intermittently-pulsed mode or the periodically-pulsed one, it is more efficient in the continuous mode, reaching 98% after 21 min treatment.     

Plasma jet array treatment to improve the hydrophobicity of contaminated HTV silicone rubber

An atmospheric-pressure plasma jet array specially designed for HTV silicone rubber treatment is reported in this paper. Stable plasma containing highly energetic active particles was uniformly generated in the plasma jet array. The discharge pattern was affected by the applied voltage. The divergence phenomenon was observed at low gas flow rate and abated when the flow rate increased.Temperature of the plasma plume is close to room temperature which makes it feasible for temperature-sensitive material treatment. Hydrophobicity of contaminated HTV silicone rubber was significantly improved after quick exposure of the plasma jet array, and the effective treatment area reached 120 mm?×?50 mm(length?×?width). Reactive particles in the plasma accelerate accumulation of the hydrophobic molecules, namely low molecular weight silicone chains, on the contaminated surface, which result in a hydrophobicity improvement of the HTV silicone rubber.     

Spatial and Excitation Variations for Different Applied Voltages in an Atmospheric Neon Plasma Jet

A neon plasma jet was generated in air,driven by a 9 kHz sinusoidal power supply.The characteristics of the plasma plume and the optical spectra with plasma propagation for different applied voltages were investigated.By increasing the applied voltage,the plasma plume first increases and then retracts to become short and bulky.The shortened effect of Ne plasma plume(about 10 mm) for the further voltage increasing is more apparent than that of He(about3 mm) and Ar(about 1 mm).Emission intensity of the N_2(337 nm) increases with the applied voltage,gradually substituting the emission intensity of Ne(702 nm and 585 nm) as the noticeable radiation.At the nozzle opening,the Ne(702 nm) emission dominates,while the Ne(585 nm)emission is most noticeable around the tip of the plasma plume.The spatial distribution of the three spectral lines indicates that Ne(702 nm) emission decreases dramatically with plasma propagation while Ne(585 nm) and N_2(337 nm) emissions reach their maxima at the middle of the plasma plume.The results indicate that the Ne(702 nm) emission is much more sensitive to the average electron temperature and the density of the high-energy electrons,so it changes greatly at the tube nozzle and little at the tip region as the voltage increases.The population of high-energy electrons,the average electron temperature,the collision with air molecules and the Penning effect between Ne metastables and air molecules may explain their different variations with plasma propagating and voltage increasing.     

A low power 50 Hz argon plasma for surface modification of polytetrafluoroethylene

The characteristics of a low power 50 Hz argon plasma for surface treatment of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film is presented in this article. The current–voltage behavior of the discharge and time-varying intensity of the discharge showed that a DC glow discharge was generated in reversed polarity at every half-cycle. At discharge power between 0.5 and 1 W, the measured electron temperature and density were 2–3 eV and ∼10⁸ cm⁻³, respectively. The optical emission spectrum of the argon plasma showed presence of some 'impurity species' such as OH, N₂ and H, which presumably originated from the residual air in the discharge chamber. On exposure of PTFE films to the argon glow plasma at pressure 120 Pa and discharge power 0.5 to 1 W, the water contact angle reduced by 4% to 20% from the original 114° at pristine condition, which confirms improvement of its surface wettability. The increase in wettability was attributed to incorporation of oxygen-containing functional groups on the treated surface and concomitant reduction in fluorine as revealed by the XPS analysis and increase in surface roughness analyzed from the atomic force micrographs. Ageing upon storage in ambient air showed retention of the induced increase in surface wettability.     

The Degradation of Organic Pollutants by Bubble Discharge in Water

Organic pollutants could be degraded by using bubble discharge in water with gas aeration in the discharge reactor and more plasma can be generated in the discharge process.When pulsed high voltage was applied between electrodes with gas aerated into the reactor,it showed that bubbles were broken,which meant that breakdown took place.It could also be observed that the removal rate of phenol increased with increasing discharge voltage or pulse frequency,and with reducing initial phenol concentration or solution electric conductivity.It could remove more amount of phenol by oxygen aeration.With increasing oxygen flow rate,the removal rate increased.There was little difference with air or nitrogen aeration for phenol removal.The solution temperature after discharge increased to a great extent.However,this part of energy consumption did not contribute to the reaction,which led to a reduction in the energy utilization efficiency.     

Plasma surface treatment of Cu by nanosecond-pulse diffuse discharges in atmospheric air

Nanosecond-pulse diffuse discharges could provide high-density plasma and high-energy electrons at atmospheric pressure. In this paper, the surface treatment of Cu by nanosecond-pulse diffuse discharges is conducted in atmospheric air. Factors influencing the water contact angle(WCA),chemical composition and microhardness, such as the gap spacing and treatment time, are investigated. The results show that after the plasma surface treatment, the WCA considerably decreases from 87° to 42.3°, and the surface energy increases from 20.46 m J m~(-2)to 66.28 m J m~(-2).Results of energy dispersive x-ray analysis show that the concentration of carbon decreases, but the concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen increase significantly. Moreover, the microhardness increases by approximately 30% after the plasma treatment. The aforementioned changes on the Cu surface indicate the plasma surface treatment enhances the hydrophilicity and microhardness, and it cleans the carbon and achieves oxidization on the Cu surface. Furthermore, by increasing the gap spacing and treatment time, better treatment effects can be obtained. The microhardness in the case of a 2.5 cm gap is higher than that in the case of a 3 cm gap. More oxygen and nitrogen species appear on the Cu surface for the 2.5 cm gap treatment than for the 3 cm gap treatment. The WCA significantly decreases with the treatment time when it is no longer than 90 s, and then it reaches saturation. In addition, more oxygen-containing and nitrogen-containing groups appear after extended plasma treatment time. They contribute to the improvement of the hydrophilicity and oxidation on the Cu surface.     

Design and characteristics investigation of a miniature low-temperature plasma spark discharge device

Atmospheric pressure low-temperature plasma is a promising tool in biomedicine applications including blood coagulation, bacterial inactivation, sterilization, and cancer treatment, due to its high chemical activity and limited thermal damage. It is of great importance to develop portable plasma sources that are safe to human touch and suitable for outdoor and household operation. In this work, a portable and rechargeable low-temperature plasma spark discharge device (130 mm × 80 mm × 35 mm, 300 g) was designed. The discharge frequency and plume length were optimized by the selection of resistance, capacitance, electrode gap, and ground electrode aperture. Results show that the spark plasma plume is generated with a length of 12 mm and a frequency of 10 Hz at a capacitance of 0.33 μF, resistance of 1 MΩ, electrode gap of 2 mm, and ground electrode aperture of 1.5 mm. Biological tests indicate that the plasma produced by this device contains abundant reactive species, which can be applied in plasma biomedicine, including daily sterilization and wound healing.     

Nonequilibrium Atmospheric Pressure Ar/O2 Plasma Jet: Properties and Application to Surface Cleaning

In this study an atmospheric pressure Ar/O_2 plasma jet is generated to study the effects of applied voltage and gas flux rate to the behavior of discharge and the metal surface cleaning.The increase in applied voltage leads to increases of the root mean square(rms) current,the input power and the gas temperature.Furthermore,the optical emission spectra show that the emission intensities of metastable argon and atomic oxygen increase with increasing applied voltage.However,the increase in gas flux rate leads to a reduction of the rms current,the input power and the gas temperature.Furthermore,the emission intensities of metastable argon and atomic oxygen decrease when gas flux rate increases.Contact angles are measured to estimate the cleaning performance,and the results show that the increase of applied voltage can improve the cleaning performance.Nevertheless,the increase of gas flux rate cannot improve the cleaning performance.Contact angles are compared for different input powers and gas flux rates to search for a better understanding of the major mechanism for surface cleaning by plasma jets.     

Plume diagnostics of BUSTLab microwave electrothermal thruster using Langmuir and Faraday probes

This study presents the Langmuir and Faraday probe measurements conducted to determine the plume characteristics of the BUSTLab microwave electrothermal thruster (MET). The thruster, designed to operate at 2.45 GHz frequency, is run with helium, argon and nitrogen gases as the propellant. For the measurements, the propellant volume flow rate and the delivered microwave power levels are varied. Experiments with nitrogen gas revealed certain operation regimes where a very luminous plume is observed. With the use of in-house-built Langmuir probes and a Faraday probe with guard ring, thruster plume electron temperature, plasma density and ion current density values are measured, and the results are presented. The measurements show that MET thruster plume effects on spacecraft will likely be similar to those of the arcjet plume. It is observed that the measured plume ion flux levels are very low for the high volume flow rates used for the operation of this thruster.     

Atmospheric air dielectric barrier discharge excited by nanosecond pulse and AC used for improving the hydrophilicity of aramid fibers

In this paper, a long line-shape dielectric barrier discharge excited by a nanosecond pulse and AC is generated in atmospheric air for the purpose of discussing the uniformity, stability and ability of aramid fiber treatment. The discharge images, waveforms of current and voltage,optical emission spectra, and gas temperatures of both discharges are compared. It is found that nanosecond pulsed discharge has a more uniform discharge morphology, higher energy efficiency and lower gas temperature, which indicates that nanosecond pulsed discharge is more suitable for surface modification. To reduce the water contact angle from 96° to about 60°, the energy cost is only about 1/7 compared with AC discharge. Scanning electron microscopy,Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are employed to understand the mechanisms of hydrophilicity improvement.     

Electrical and optical characteristics of atmospheric helium jet array plasma

In this paper, a honeycomb structure jet array with seven jet units was adopted to generate plasmas. Both the average discharge power and the emission intensity of the main excited species increase with increasing applied voltage. There are three stages of discharge evolution at different applied voltages: initial discharge, uniform discharge and strong coupling discharge.The spatial distribution of the emission intensity of the excited species can be divided into three categories: growth class, weakening class and variation class. The gas temperature along the whole plasma plume at different applied voltages is maintained at around 320K and can be widely used in heat-labile applications.     

Exploration to generate atmospheric pressure glow discharge plasma in air

Atmospheric pressure glow discharge (APGD) plasma in air has high application value.In this paper,the methods of generating APGD plasma in air are discussed,and the characteristics of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in non-uniform electric field are studied.It makes sure that APGD in air is formed by DBD in alternating current electric field with using the absorbing electron capacity of electret materials to provide initial electrons and to end the discharge progress.Through designing electric field to form two-dimensional space varying electric field and three-dimensional space varying electric field,the development of electron avalanches in airgap is suppressed effectively and a large space of APGD plasma in air is generated.Further,through combining electrode structures,a large area of APGD plasma in air is generated.On the other hand,by using the method of increasing the density of initial electrons,millimeter-gap glow discharge in atmospheric pressure air is formed,and a maximum gap distance between electrodes is 8 ram.By using the APGD plasma surface treatment device composed of contact electrodes,the surface modification of high polymer materials such as aramid fiber and polyester are studied and good effect of modifications is obtained.The present paper provides references for the researchers of industrial applications of plasma.