Potential industrial applications of the one atmosphere uniform glow discharge plasma operating in ambient air

The majority of industrial plasma processing is conducted with glow discharges at pressures below 10 Torr. This tends to limit such applications to high value workpieces, as a result of the high capital cost of vacuum systems and the production constraints of batch processing. It has long been recognized that glow discharges would play a much larger industrial role if they could be generated at 1 atm and in air. The one atmosphere uniform glow discharge plasma (OAUGDP®) has these capabilities. As a normal glow discharge, the OAUGDP® can operate with maximum electrical efficiency at the Stoletow point, where the energy input per ion-electron pair is a minimum. This paper will survey exploratory investigations at the University of Tennessee’s Plasma Sciences Laboratory of seven potential industrial applications of the OAUGDP® which can be conducted at 1 atm and at room temperature with air as the working gas.