Characterization of Cold Plasma with Glow Discharge Mechanism of Plasma Jet System

Abstract

Cold plasma with glow discharge mechanism exhibiting a uniform ionization process when a background gas passes through the discharge region of the plasma reactor under a certain optimum configuration of input parameters. A glow discharge is a homogeneous and effective mechanism of cold plasma for industrial applications due to the continuous and stable discharge process compared to the filamentary discharge. Meanwhile, the development of glow discharge plasma operated under atmospheric pressure condition is indispensable to overcome the weaknesses of filamentary discharge plasma, such as the nonuniform and discontinuous discharge process. The discharge mechanism is essentially dependent upon the input parameters of the plasma system, such as the amplitude of the voltage supply, the operating frequency, and the flow rate of the background gas. In this paper, the effects of voltage supply on plasma discharge characteristics produced from the plasma jet reactor with the high-voltage electrode are discussed. The value of voltage supply is tuned to be suitable with the discharge gap, frequency supply, and background gas flow rate in producing the homogeneous glow plasma discharge. The characteristics of the glow plasma discharge produced are analyzed based on the pattern of the charge-voltage Lissajous figure and time-domain discharge current techniques. Results show that the most efficient and uniform plasma is disclosed by the configuration of input parameters such as 0.5 kV of supply voltage, 20 kHz of operating frequency, and 0.8 L/min of purified helium gas flow rate. The parallelogram-like Lissajous figure obtained indicating the homogeneous plasma discharge with a constant value of discharge capacitance.