Impact of silica seeding and discharge voltage onplasma parameters at atmospheric pressure

The interaction of cold plasma with heterogeneous catalysts has led to some peculiar behavior, especially withsilica (sio2) seeding in presence of 2% alumina (al2o3). in this paper, we have measured plasma parameters inlow temperature arc plasma. i - v characteristics of langmuir probes are plotted using the data obtained fromthe experimental set up for single probe method in arc plasma at atmospheric pressure. it is revealed that theused seed modifies the electron temperature of the plasma appreciably while the temperature of the gas in thesurrounding remains almost unchanged. the single probe characteristics have been utilized to measure theelectron temperature, floating potential, debye length and electron density. it is found that electron temperaturedecreases whereas electron density increases appreciably after seeding the arc plasma. the decrease inelectron temperature and increase in electron density to 99.9% are observed after seeding the arc plasmawith silica mixture as compared to those before seeding. variations in plasma parameters such as electrontemperature, electron density, plasma frequency and debye length with discharge voltage are also plotted for thesilica seeded arc plasma.