Electrical and Thermal Characteristics of a Nonthermal Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Plume

Summary form only given. In recent years, nonthermal atmospheric pressure plasmas have been used extensively for biological and medical applications. Several new devices (plasma needle, plasma torch, plasma plume) are currently being developed for such applications. In this paper, experiments with a nonthermal atmospheric pressure plasma plume, generated with a new geometry, are described. A point-disk electrical discharge is generated inside a dielectric cylinder (ID = 16 mm; OD = 18 mm), in an working gas (helium, argon) at atmospheric pressure. The discharge is powered with high-voltage pulses of 10-30 kV amplitude, 200 ns width, 50 -200 pulses per second. The gas flow rate is of 2-4 1/min. In these conditions, a nonthermal plasma plume, several cm´s long, is expelled from cylinder, through an 1 mm hole. The cylinder can be safely handled, because the external disk electrode is grounded. Electrical and thermal characteristics of this plasma plume, for various experimental conditions (working gas, flow rate, high-voltage amplitude, point-disk distance, pulse repetition frequency) are presented.