PROCESSES OF TRANSFER IN A LOW-TEMPERATURE PLASMA

COMPARISON OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A PLASMA GENERATED BY A D.C. ARC PLASMATRON AND A HIGH-VOLTAGE A.C. PLASMATRON WITH RAIL-SHAPED ELECTRODES (GLIDING ARC) AS APPLIED TO THE SYNTHESIS OF CARBON NANOMATERIALS
A. F. Bublievskii, A. A. Galinovskii, A. V. Gorbunov, S. A. Zhdanok, V. A. Koval', L. I. Sharakhovskii, G. V. Dolgolenko, and D. S. Skomorokhov UDC 531.4:533.9:536.45 Comparative results of investigating the parameters of plasmas generated by atmospheric-pressure electric-arc plasmatrons of two types operating in the regime of simultaneous partial oxidation of hydrocarbons and their pyrolysis, have been given. It has been established by spectral and thermophysical measurements that the component composition of the plasma and its thermal characteristics at exit from a d.c. plasmatron significantly differ from the parameters of a plasmatron of the second type - an a.c. plasmatron with rail-shaped electrodes of the gliding-arc type. The temperature nonequilibrium and the presence of the carbon dimers C2 in the plasma (in the absence of the monomer C) generated by the rail-shaped-electrode plasmatron point to the fact that realization of the synthesis of fullerene-containing particles and, probably, particles containing nanotubes is, in principle, possible in reactors based on it, just as in more energy-intensive reactors with low-voltage d.c. arc plasmatrons. A. V. Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 15 P. Brovka Str., Minsk, 220072, Belarus. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 79, No. 4, pp. 3-11, July-August, 2006. Original article submitted September 20, 2005.