Wire-in-Hole-Type Spark Discharge Generator for Long-Time Consistent Generation of Unagglomerated Nanoparticles

Abstract

he electrode configuration in a spark discharge generator plays a critical role in the characteristics of the process. For instance, the rod-to-rod configuration is unable to prevent nanoparticles from agglomerating due to slow local carrier gas velocity. On the other hand, the recently developed pin-to-plate configuration is able to produce unagglomerated nanoparticles; however, the geometric mean diameter and the number concentration of produced nanoparticles change over time as the pin gets eroded. In this work, we present a novel wire-in-hole-type spark discharge generator (WH-SDG) which is able to generate unagglomerated nanoparticles with a constant size distribution over a long time. The WH-SDG, which consists of a metal wire and a grounded plate with a hole in which the metal wire is located in the center, effectively suppressed changes in the electrode morphology and the gap distance, which cause the minimal variation of the spark discharge voltage and frequency in time. Therefore, the WH-SDG was able to maintain a constant size distribution of the generated nanoparticles for 12 h. In addition, it was found that the WH-SDG could control the diameter of nanoparticles by regulating the gas flow rate into generator, and could produce nanoparticles from various metals such as copper and palladium.Copyright 2015 American Association for Aerosol Research