Hybrid argon plasma coagulation for the treatment of Barrett’s esophagus:A prospective,multicenter study

BACKGROUND The incidence of Barrett’s esophagus(BE)in China is lower compared to the Western populations.Hence,studies conducted in the Chinese population has been limited.The current treatment options available for BE treatment includes argon plasma coagulation(APC),radiofrequency ablation and cryoablation,all with varying degrees of success.AIM To determine the efficacy and safety of HybridAPC in the treatment of BE.METHODS The study cohort consisted of patients with BE who underwent HybridAPC ablation treatment.These procedures were performed by seven endoscopists from different tertiary hospitals.The duration of the procedure,curative rate,complications and recurrent rate by 1-year follow-up were recorded.RESULTS Eighty individuals were enrolled for treatment from July 2017 to June 2020,comprising of 39 males and 41 females with a median age of 54 years(range,30 to 83 years).The technical success rate of HybridAPC was 100%and the overall curative rate was 98.15%.No severe complications occurred during the operation.BE cases were classified as short-segment BE and long-segment BE.Patients with short-segment BE were all considered cured without complications.Thirty-six patients completed the one-year follow-up without recurrence.Twenty-four percent had mild dysplasia which were all resolved with one post-procedural treatment.The mean duration of the procedure was 10.94±6.52 min.CONCLUSION Treatment of BE with HybridAPC was found to be a simple and quick procedure that is safe and effective during the short-term follow-up,especially in cases of short-segment BE.This technique could be considered as a feasible alternative ablation therapy for BE.

Comparison of dry reforming of methane in low temperature hybrid plasma-catalytic corona with thermal catalytic reactor over Ni/γ-Al_2O_3

In the current study, the hybrid effect of a corona discharge and γ-alumina supported Ni catalysts in CO2 reforming of methane is investigated. The study includes both purely catalytic operation in the temperature range of 923-1023 K, and hybrid catalytic-plasma operation of DC corona discharge reactor at room temperature and ambient pressure. The effect of feed flow rate, discharge power and Ni/γ-Al2O3 catalysts are studied. When CH4/CO2 ratio in the feed is 1/2, the syngas of low Ha/CO ratio at about 0.56 is obtained, which is a potential feedstock for synthesis of liquid hydrocarbons. Although Ni catalyst is only active above 573 K, presence of Ni catalysts in the cold corona plasma reactor （T≤523 K） shows promising increase in the conversions of methane and carbon dioxide. When Ni catalysts are used in the plasma reaction, H2/CO ratios in the products are slightly modified, selectivity to CO increases whereas fewer by-products such as hydrocarbons and oxygenates are formed.

CO_2 laser-micro plasma arc hybrid welding for galvanized steel sheets

A laser lap welding process for zinc-coated steel has a well-known unsolved problem-porosity formation. The boiling temperature of coated zinc is lower than the melting temperature of the base metal, which is steel. In the autogenous laser welding, the zinc vapor generates from the lapped surfaces expels the molten pool and the expulsion causes numerous weld defects, such as spatters and blow holes on the weld surface and porosity inside the welds. The laser-arc hybrid welding was suggested as an alternative method for the laser lap welding because the arc can preheat or post-beat the weldment according to the arrangement of the laser beam and the arc. CO2 laser-micro plasma hybrid welding was applied to the lap welding of zinc-coated steel with zero-gap. The relationships among the weld quality and process parameters of the laser-arc arrangement, and the laser-arc interspacing distance and arc current were investigated using a full-factorial experimental design. The effect of laser-arc arrangement is dominant because the leading plasma arc partially melts the upper steel sheets and vaporizes or oxidizes the coated zinc on the lapped surfaces. Compared with the result from the laser-TIG hybrid welding, the heat input from arc can be reduced by 40%.

A One-Dimensional Hybrid Simulation of DC/RF Combined Driven Capacitive Plasma

We developed a one-dimensional hybrid model to simulate the DC/RF combined driven capacitively coupled plasma for argon discharges. The numerical results are used to analyze the influence of the DC source on the plasma density distribution, ion energy distributions （IEDs） and ion angle distributions （IADs） on both the RF and DC electrodes. The increase in DC voltage drives more high-energy ions to the electrode applied to the DC source, which makes the IEDs at the DC electrode shift towards higher energy, and the peaks in the IADs shift towards small angle regions. At the same time, it also decreases the ion energy at the RF electrode and enlarges the incident angles of the ions, which strike the RF electrode.

Internal modification in transparent hybrid germanium-silica plates using plasma formation induced by a femtosecond laser

The fabrication of an internal diffraction grating with photoinduced refractive index modification in planar hybrid germanium-silica plates was demonstrated using low-density plasma formation excited by a high-intensity femtosecond (150 fs) Ti:sapphire laser (λp=790 nm).The refractive index modifications with diameters ranging from 400 nm to 3 μm were photoinduced after plasma formation occurred upon irradiation with peak intensities of more than 2×1013 W/cm2.The graded refractive index profile was fabricated to be a symmetric around from the center of the point at which low-density plasma occurred.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of the joint of 6061 aluminum alloy by plasma-MIG hybrid welding

Plasma-MIG {metal inert gas arc welding） hybrid welding of aluminum alloy with 6 mm thickness using ER5356 welding wire was carried out. The microstructures and mechanical properties of the welded joint were investigated by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction （XRD） , energy dispersive spectroscopy （EDS） , tensile test, hardness test and scanning electron microscope （ SEM） were used to judge the type of tensile fracture. The results showed that the tensile strength of welded joint was 142 MPa which was 53. 6% o f the strength o f the base metal. The welding seam zone was characterized by dendritic structure. In the fusion zone, the columnar grains existed at one side of the welding seam. The fibrous organization was found in the base metal, and also in the heat affected zone （HAZ） where the recrystallization occurred. The HAZ was the weakest position of the welded joint due to the coarsening of Mg2Si phase. The type of tensile fracture was ductile fracture.

Poloidal rotation induced by injecting lower hybrid waves in tokamak plasma edge

The poloidal rotation of the magnetized edge plasma in tokamak driven by the ponderomotive force which is generated by injecting lower hybrid wave(LHW) electric field has been studied. The LHW is launched from a waveguide in the plasma edge, and by Brambilla's grill theory, analytic expressions for the wave electric field in the slab model of an inhomogeneous cold plasma have been derived. It is shown that a strong wave electric field will be generated in the plasma edge by injecting LH wave of the power in MW magnitude, and this electric field will induce a poloidal rotation with a sheared poloidal velocity.

Characteristics of a radio-frequency cold atmospheric plasma jet produced with a hybrid cross-linear-field electrode configuration

Cold atmospheric plasma(CAP)jet has wide applications in various fields including advanced materials synthesis and modifications,biomedicine,environmental protection and energy saving,etc.Appropriate control on the volume,temperature and chemically reactive species concentratio ns of the CAP jet is of great importance in actual applications.In this paper,an radio-frequency atmospheric-pressure glow discharge(RF-APGD)plasma generator with a hybrid cross-linear-field electrode configuration is proposed.The experimental results show that,with the aid of the copper mesh located at the downstream of the traditional co-axial-type plasma generator with a cross-field electrode configuration,a linear field between the inner powered electrode of the traditional plasma generator and the copper mesh can be established.This linerfield can,to some extent,enhance the discharges at the upstream of the copper mesh,resulting in small increments(all less than 12.5%)of the species emission intensities,electron excitation temperatures and gas temperatures by keeping other parameters being unchanged.And due to the intrinsic transparent and conducting features of the grounded copper mesh to the gas flowing,electric current and heat flux of the plasma plumes,a plasma region with higher concentrations of chemically reactive species and larger plasma plume diameters is obtained at the downstream of the grounded copper mesh on the same level of the gas temperature and electron excitation temperature compared to those of the plasma free jet.In addition,the charged particle number densities at the same downstream axial location of the grounded copper mesh decrease significantly compared to those of the plasma free jet.This means that the copper mesh is also,to some extent,helpful for separating the chemically reactive neutral species from the charged particles in side a plasma environment.The preceding results indicate that the cross-linear-field electrode configuration of the plasma generator is an effective approach for tuning the characteristics of the RF-APGD plasma jet in order to obtain an appropriate combination of the plasma jet properties with higher chemically reactive species concentrations,especially relative higher number densities of neutral species,larger plasma volumes and lower gas temperatures.

Preliminary Study of a Hybrid Helicon-ECR Plasma Source

A new type of hybrid discharge is experimentally investigated in this work. A helicon source and an electron cyclotron resonance（ECR） source were combined to produce plasma. As a preliminary study of this type of plasma, the optical emission spectroscopy（OES） method was used to obtain values of electron temperature and density under a series of typical conditions. Generally,it was observed that the electron temperature decreases and the electron density increases as the pressure increased. When increasing the applied power at a certain pressure, the average electron density at certain positions in the discharge does not increase significantly possibly due to the high degree of neutral depletion. Electron temperature increased with power in the hybrid mode.Possible mechanisms of these preliminary observations are discussed.

Upper Hybrid Resonance of Microwaves with a Large Magnetized Plasma Sheet

A large magnetized plasma sheet with size of 60 cm×60 cm×2 cm was generated by a linear hollow cathode discharge under the confinement of a uniform magnetic field generated by a Helmholtz Coil. The microwave transmission characteristic of the plasma sheet was measured for different incident frequencies, in cases with the electric field polarization of the incident microwave either perpendicular or parallel to the magnetic field. In this measurement, parameters of the plasma sheet were changed by varying the discharge current and magnetic field intensity. In the experiment, upper hybrid resonance phenomena were observed when the electric field polarization of the incident wave was perpendicular to the magnetic field. These resonance phenomena cannot be found in the case of parallel polarization incidence. This result is consistent with theoretical consideration. According to the resonance condition, the electron density values at the resonance points are calculated under various experimental conditions. This kind of resonance phenomena can be used to develop a specific method to diagnose the electron density of this magnetized plasma sheet apparatus. Moreover, it is pointed out that the operating parameters of the large plasma sheet in practical applications should be selected to keep away from the upper hybrid resonance point to prevent signals from polarization distortion.

Edge Plasma behavior during Improved Confinement by Lower Hybrid Wave Heating in HT-6M Tokamak

Lower hybrid heating (LHH) has been successfully carried out in the HT-6M toka-mak. The H-mode has been obtained with a power threshold of 50 kW under a boronized wall condition. Both energy and particle confinements have been improved along with a dropped edge plasma density and an increase electron temperature during the LHH phase. A negative Er well plays a key role of triggering and sustaining the good confinement. Both electrostatic fluctuation of the plasma potential and the density fluctuations dropped to an ultra-low level. The observation of an enhanced Er shear before the reduction in turbulence level is consistent with an increased Er shear as the cause of turbulence suppression.

Experimental assessment of a plasma-catalyst hybrid reformer for hydrogen production via partial oxidation of dimethyl ether

In this work,hydrogen is produced from partial oxidation reforming of dimethyl ether （DME） by a plasma-catalyst hybrid reformer under atmospheric pressure.The plasma-catalyst hybrid reformer which includes both plasma and catalyst reactors is designed.A spark discharge is used as a non-equilibrium plasma source,and it is used to ionize the mixture of DME and air.The performances of the reformer are characterized experimentally in terms of gas concentrations,hydrogen yield,DME conversion ratio,and specific energy consumption.The effects of discharge frequency,reaction temperature,air-to-DME ratio and space velocity are investigated.The experimental results show that the plasma-catalyst hybrid reformer enhances hydrogen yield when reaction temperature drops below 620 ℃.At 450 ℃,hydrogen yield of hybrid reforming is almost three times that of catalyst reforming.When space velocity is 510 h-1,hydrogen yield is 67.7%,and specific energy consumption is 12.2 k J/L-H2.

Plasma–wave interaction in helicon plasmas near the lower hybrid frequency

We study the characteristics of plasma–wave interaction in helicon plasmas near the lower hybrid frequency.The(0D)dispersion relation is derived to analyze the properties of the wave propagation and a 1D cylindrical plasma–wave interaction model is established to investigate the power deposition and to implement the parametric analysis.It is concluded that the lower hybrid resonance is the main mechanism of the power deposition in helicon plasmas when the RF frequency is near the lower hybrid frequency and the power deposition mainly concentrates on a very thin layer near the boundary.Therefore,it causes that the plasma resistance has a large local peak near the lower hybrid frequency and the variation of the plasma density and the parallel wavenumber lead to the frequency shifting of the local peaks.It is found that the magnetic field is still proportional to the plasma density for the local maximum plasma resistance and the slope changes due to the transition.

A fast hybrid simulation approach of ion energy and angular distributions in biased inductively coupled Ar plasmas

In this work,a two-dimensional hybrid model,which consists of a bulk fluid module,a sheath module and an ion Monte-Carlo module,is developed to investigate the modulation of ion energy and angular distributions at different radial positions in a biased argon inductively coupled plasma.The results indicate that when the bias voltage amplitude increases or the bias frequency decreases,the ion energy peak separation width becomes wider.Besides,the widths of the ion energy peaks at the edge of the substrate are smaller than those at the center due to the lower plasma density there,indicating the nonuniformity of the ion energy distribution function(IEDF)along the radial direction.As the pressure increases from 1 to 10 Pa,the discrepancy of the IEDFs at different radial positions becomes more obvious,i.e.the IEDF at the radial edge is characterized by multiple low energy peaks.When a dual frequency bias source is applied,the IEDF exhibits three or four peaks,and it could be modulated efficiently by the relative phase between the two bias frequencies.The results obtained in this work could help to improve the radial uniformity of the IEDF and thus the etching process.

A Study of Energy Conversion Efficiency Versus Plasma Density by Lower Hybrid Current Drive in HT-7 Tokamak

Ramp-up experiments by means of lower hybrid wave on HT-7 superconducting tokamak have been performed and analyzed. A ramp-up rate of over 300 kA/s is obtained and a conversion efficiency of over 1.0% has been achieved during the ramp-up phase. The study of the dependence of conversion efficiency on plasma density shows that the conversion efficiency is affected by the driven current, which is mainly dominated by the competition of impurity concentration with wave accessibility condition. In addition, the effect of current profile may play an important role in determining the conversion efficiency.

Mg-Ti hybrid joints:Surface modification,corrosion studies and 3D-pore investigation using synchrotron-based microtomography

A new direction toward the future of orthopedic implants is to combine biodegradable Mg alloys with permanent Ti to produce selectively biodegradable hybrid joints for advanced tissue engineering.However,the strong galvanic corrosion between Mg and Ti is a major issue to be considered.This work aims to explore plasma electrolytic oxidation(PEO)as a single-step coating treatment to allow for an acceptable degradation behavior of MgTi hybrid systems.To this end,MgTi hybrid joints were produced through the heat treatment of Mg-0.6Ca and commercially pure Ti specimens at 640°C for 8 h.A single-step PEO treatment was then employed to create a protective layer on the surface of hybrid couples.Even though the scanning electron microscopy(SEM)images showed only a porosity of 6%and 12%within the PEO layers on single Mg and MgTi couples,3D investigation of the synchrotron-based microtomography data demonstrated a porosity of 18%and 30%with a considerable number of interconnected pores.According to the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements,the impedance modulus at all frequencies on coated MgTi coupled specimens was lower than that on the coated single Mg-0.6Ca and pure Ti.However,the application of PEO treatment significantly decreased the strong galvanic degradation of Mg-0.6Ca in contact with Ti.The results of hydrogen evolution tests revealed that PEO-treated MgTi couples showed a similar degradation behavior as the single alloy during the first day of immersion.

D36海洋平台用钢Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接工艺研究

D36海洋平台用钢是造船和海洋平台行业不可或缺的材料,本研究采用Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接实现了厚25 mm的D36钢对接实验。实验表明:采用优化的12道规划路径的Plasma-MIG多层多道焊焊接工艺参数可以满足焊缝宏观形貌要求,焊缝成形美观,无气孔、夹杂、未熔合等缺陷。与传统MIG焊D36钢接头抗拉强度相比,Plasma-MIG复合焊工艺能够提高D36钢的焊接接头强度。Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接厚25 mm的D36钢焊缝底部的冲击功为62.26 J,中部为103.27 J,顶部为124.68 J,均远大于海洋工程平台建造焊接规范标准的34 J。因此,焊缝具有较好的低温冲击韧性。

增量型PID恒流恒压控制的Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接

Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接对电源的外特性输出及焊接过程控制有着很高的要求,以VC++软件开发工具为平台,推导了适合于Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接的增量型PID控制算法,实现了对复合电弧焊接过程控制及电源外特性的要求.结果表明,增量型PID恒流恒压控制能够满足Plasma-MIG对电源外特性的输出要求.Plasma电弧和MIG电弧并不是相互独立的,两者以共享的电磁空间、导电气氛和焊丝为媒介建立起耦合关系.Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接过程中,增量型PID控制下的Plasma电弧能够自发的调节自身电参数,来稳定电弧空间的电流密度,使得焊接过程中无飞溅.采用控制后,Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊焊接过程焊缝铺展好,焊接过程稳定,焊缝成形好.

Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接特性分析

采用Plasma-MIG复合电弧对Q235低碳钢进行堆焊试验,对焊接过程中复合电弧形态、电弧空间分布、焊缝成形及细晶原理进行了分析.结果表明,Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接过程中,外层等离子电弧单独存在,内层MIG电弧在焊丝端部与外层等离子弧耦合.复合电弧空间温度分布均匀,高温停留时间短,冷却速度快.Plasma-MIG复合电弧在大的等离子电流下,促进填充金属润湿铺展,焊缝熔宽大,成形美观.相同热输入量条件下,等离子电流增大能够促进晶粒自发形核,原奥氏体晶粒及焊缝组织得到细化.

Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接技术发展

随着交通运输、航空航天、海洋工程等行业的快速发展,对于高效化、高质量化的焊接生产提出了更高的需求。复合热源的产生对于实现高效化,高质量化的焊接展开了广阔的发展前景。Plasma-MIG复合电弧焊接特点在于焊丝熔化速度快、无飞溅、焊接过程稳定,焊缝成形美观、气孔少、晶粒小、接头质量高,是一种高效化、高质量化的复合热源焊接工艺。简要介绍了Plasma-MIG复合热源的研究进展及应用现状,并对未来该焊接工艺的发展趋势进行了分析评价。