Experiments on atmospheric pressure microwave plasmas produced in a He/CH4 Mixture

Abstract

In this study, gas temperature and electron density of atmospheric pressure microwave plasma produced in a He-CH4 mixture were measured to investigate the effect of flow rate on plasma properties. Previous studies have reported that a change in flow rate can modify the properties of carbon nanoparticles synthesized using the atmospheric microwave plasma; however, few have studied how the change in flow rate affects plasma properties. As the total flow rate changed from 40 slpm to 80 slpm, the plasma temperature varied from 3,678±100K to 3,122±100K, whereas the electron density varied from (1.05±0.3)×1013 cm-3 to (1.33±0.3)×1013 cm-3. The plasma properties, such as gas temperature and electron density, remained relatively unchanged regardless of the flow rate, indicating that the flow rate through the plasma region was relatively constant as the plasma volume decreased. © 2021 The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers