Ultrasound Enhanced Plasma

Plasma processing has been widely applied for surface modification of materials. Reactive species of ions, electrons, high-energy neutrals and radicals are generated in a plasma, diffuse through a boundary gas layer between the plasma and a material surface, and subsequently react with the surface. Due to the short lifetimes of these reactive species, only a small amount of them can reach the surface, limiting efficient, high speed treatment. Since ultrasonic waves can efficiently reduce the thickness of the boundary gas layer, surface modification effect can be enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation onto the surfaces during plasma treatment.

Our preliminary experiments show that oxidation of polymeric surfaces can be enhanced by simultaneous irradiation of high energy ultrasonic waves during dielectric barrier discharge treatment at atmospheric pressure. We also found that gas phase reactions in an atmospheric pressure plasma can be enhanced by the ultrasonic irradiation. 

The project is the collaboration with FORCE Technology. 

Sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through the National Danish Proof of Concept funding Scheme (grant No. 07-017766)

The results were presented in

1. The talk “Atmospheric pressure plasma processing at Risø DTU” at the International Workshop on Plasma and Nanotechnology, Roskilde, Denmark, 12 June 2009.
2. The talk “Plasma surface modification of fibre reinforced polyester enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation” at the 3rd International Conference on Advanced Computational Engineering and Experimenting (ACE-X 2009), 22-23 July 2009, Rome, Italy. 
3. The talk "Atmospheric pressure plasma treatment enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation” at the European Congress on Advanced Materials and Processes (EUROMAT2009), 7-10 September 2009, Glasgow, Scotland. 
4. The article “Plasma surface modification at atmospheric pressure”, Y. Kusano, Surf. Eng. 25(6) (2009) 415-416. 
5. The article "Plasma surface modification of fibre reinforced polyester enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation", Y. Kusano, S.V. Singh, A. Bardenshtein, N. Krebs, N. Rozlosnik, J. Adhes. Sci. Technol., 24 (2010) 1831-1839. 
6. The talk "Dielectric barrier discharge treatment of polyester in atmospheric pressure air enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation", at the 4th International Conference on Advanced Computational Engineering and Experimenting (ACE-X 2010), 8-9 July 2010, Paris, France. 
7. The talk "Gliding arc surface treatment of glass fibre reinforced polyester enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation", at 12th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering (PSE 2010), 13-17 September 2010, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. 
8. The talk "Ultrasound enhanced plasma surface modification at atmospheric pressure" at the 10th International Conference on Applied Surface Engineering and 5th International Conference of Surface and Interface Science & Engineering, 19-22 October 2010, Singapore. 
9. The article "Ultrasound enhanced plasma treatment of glass-fibre-reinforced polyester in atmospheric pressure air for adhesion improvement", Y. Kusano, S.V. Singh, K. Norrman, F. Leipold, J. Drews, P. Morgen, A. Bardenshtein, N. Krebs, J. Adhes. 87 (2011) 720-731. 
10. The article "Gliding arc surface treatment of glass fiber reinforced polyester enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation" Y. Kusano, K. Norrman, J. Drews, P. Morgen, F. Leipold, S.V. Singh, A. Bardenshtein, N. Krebs. Surf. Coat. Technol. 205 (2011) S490-S494 
11. The article "Ozone production in a dielectric barrier discharge with ultrasonic irradiation" J. Drews, Y. Kusano, F. Leipold, A. Bardenshtein, N. Krebs, Ozone: Sci. Eng., in press 
12. The presentation "50-Hz plasma treatment of glass fibre reinforced polyester at atmospheric pressure enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation" at the International Conference on Phenomena in Ionized Gases, ICPIG XXX September 2011 Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK 
13. The article "Ultrasound enhanced plasma surface modification at atmospheric pressure" Y. Kusano, S.V. Singh, K. Norrman, J. Drews, F. Leipold, N. Rozlosnik, A. Bardenshtein, N. Krebs, Surf. Eng. accepted for publication