Degradation of Benzene by Using a Silent-Packed Bed Hybrid Discharge Plasma Reactor

In this work, a novel gas phase silent-packed bed hybrid discharge plasma reactor has been proposed, and its ability to control a simulative gas stream containing 240 ppm benzene is experimentally investigated. In order to optimize the geometry of the reactor, the benzene conversion rate and energy yield （EY） were compared for various inner electrode diameters and quartz tube shapes and sizes. In addition, benzene removal efficiency in different discharge regions was qualitatively analyzed and the gas parameter （space velocity） was systematically studied. It has been found that silent-packed bed hybrid discharge plasma reactor can effectively decompose benzene. Benzene removal proved to achieve an optimum value of 60% with a characteristic energy density of 255 J/L in this paper with a 6 mm bolt high-voltage electrode and a 13 mm quartz tube. The optimal space velocity was 188.1 h^-1, which resulted in moderate energy yield and removal efficiency. Reaction by-products such as hydroquinone, heptanoic acid, 4-nitrocatechol, phenol and 4-phenoxy-phenol were identified by mean of GC-MS. In addition, based on these organic by-products, a benzene destruction pathway was proposed.

The Realization of Low Loop Voltage Start-up of HT-7 Tokamak Discharge with the Assistance of Lower Hybrid Wave

Low voltage start-up was realized in HT-7 discharges under the assistance of lower hybrid (LH) waves. The use of a strong LH wavet which can Change its N// spectrum in a large range of several milliseconds, made the loop voltage for start-up reduce from around 20 V to less than 5 V. It means that the electric field for HT-7 start-up decreases from 2.5-3 V/m to 0.6 V/m. Some physical phenomena such as the consumption of magnetic flux in start-up phase and the radiation from the initial plasma were observed in this kind of low voltage start-up discharges.

Effects of direct current discharge on the spatial distribution of cylindrical inductively-coupled plasma at different gas pressures

Stable operations of single direct current （DC） discharge, single radio frequency （RF） discharge and DC ＋ RF hybrid discharge are achieved in a specially-designed DC enhanced inductively- coupled plasma （DCE-ICP） source. Their plasma characteristics, such as electron density, electron temperature and the electron density spatial distribution profiles are investigated and compared experimentally at different gas pressures. It is found that under the condition of single RF discharge, the electron density distribution profiles show a ＇convex＇ shape and ＇saddle＇ shape at gas pressures of 3 mTorr and 150 mTorr respectively. This result can be attributed to the transition of electron kinetics from nonlocal to local kinetics with an increase in gas pressure. Moreover, in the operation of DC q- RF hybrid discharge at different gas pressures, the DC discharge has different effects on plasma uniformity. The plasma uniformity can be improved by modulating DC power at a high pressure of 150 mTorr where local electron kinetics is dominant, whereas plasma uniformity deteriorates at a low pressure of 3 mTorr where nonlocal electron kinetics prevails. This phenomenon, as analyzed, is due to the obvious nonlinear enhancement effect of electron density at the chamber center, and the inherent radial distribution difference in the electron density with single RF discharge at different gas pressures.

Removal of phenol by activated alumina bed in pulsed high-voltage electric field

A new process for removing the pollutants in aqueous solution-activated alumina bed in pulsed high-voltage electric field was investigated for the removal of phenol under different conditions. The experimental results indicated the increase in removal rate with increasing applied voltage, increasing pH value of the solution, aeration, and adding Fe^2＋. The removal rate of phenol could reach 72.1% when air aeration flow rate was 1200 ml/min, and 88.2% when 0.05 mmol/L Fe^2＋ was added into the solution under the conditions of applied voltage 25 kV, initial phenol concentration of 5 mg/L, and initial pH value 5.5. The addition of sodium carbonate reduced the phenol removal rate. In the pulsed high-voltage electric field, local discharge occurred at the surface of activated alumina, which promoted phenol degradation in the thin water film. At the same time, the space-time distribution of gas-liquid phases was more uniform and the contact areas of the activated species generated from the discharge and the pollutant molecules were much wider due to the effect of the activated alumina bed. The synthetical effects of the pulsed high-voltage electric field and the activated alumina particles accelerated phenol degradation.

Effect of Internal Antenna Coil Power on the Plasma Parameters in13.56 MHz/60 MHz Dual-Frequency Sputtering

The plasma property of a hybrid ICP/sputtering discharge driven by 13.56 MHz/60 MHz power sources was investigated by Langmuir probe measurement. For the pure sputtering discharge, the low electron density and ion flux, the rise of floating potential and plasma potential with increasing power, as well as the bi-Maxwellian distribution of electron en- ergy distributions （EEDFs） were obtained. The assistance of ICP discharge led to the effective increases of electron density and ion flux, the suppression of rise of floating potential and plasma potential, as well as the change of EEDFs from bi-Maxwellian distribution into Maxwellian dis- tribution. The increase of electron density and ion flux, and the EEDFs evolution were related to the effective electron heating by the induced electric field.

New progress of the miniaturized microwave ion source at Peking University

The generation of plasma in a microwave ion source involves confining electrons using a static magnetic field and energizing them with an electromagnetic field that transmitted into the plasma chamber.However,according to electromagnetics theory,there is always a cut-off size in circular wave guides for a given frequency.For a 2.45 GHz microwave,this dimension is 72 mm,which should theoretically prevent transmission of the microwave into the discharge chamber and no plasma can be generated.Since 2006 Peking University(PKU)has successfully developed a series of permanent magnet 2.45 GHz microwave ion sources(PKU PMECRs)with a discharge chamber less than 50 mm,capable of delivering tens of mA beams for accelerators.To explain this anomalous phenomenon,a hybrid discharge heating(HDH)mode that combines surface wave plasma and electron cyclotron heating has been proposed.This HDH mode not only successfully explains PKU PMECRs,but also predicts that the optimized inner diameter of the plasma chamber is 24 mm,which is confirmed by experiments involving different liners in the miniaturized microwave ion source.