An effective approach for designing a low pressure DC glow discharge plasma reactor

Abstract

Most plasma reactors are designed for research purposes and they are less appropriate for industry. To facilitate the engineering of an industrial reactor, an effective approach based only on the calculated Paschen curve, the simulation of the electric field and the breakdown reduced field is proposed. The results show that the experimental Paschen curve is different from the theoretical one; consequently the recalculation of the electric parameters is discussed. The experimental voltage/Current characteristic is used to identify the abnormal glow discharge regime and also to correlate the visual aspect of the discharge with its regimes.