Study of neutral mass and positive ion energy distributions from atmospheric pressure surfatron Ar plasmas

By applying mass spectrometry techniques, we carried out measurements of neutral and ionic mass spectrum and their ion energy distribution in order to investigate an atmospheric argon discharge by using a surfatron surface-wave device. The motivation of this study was to obtain a better understanding of an atmospheric surface-wave plasma that may play a key role on new second generation biofuel technologies. Measurements were performed by changing forward power and length and fixed flow rate. The main results were that the peak of the positive ion energy distributions shifted to higher energies as a function of plasma length. Concentrations of different neutral and ionic species are considerably dependent on plasma parameters. 1