Methane coupling under low temperature plasmas at atmospheric pressure is a green process by use of renewable sources of energy. In this study, CH4+H2 dis- charge plasma was on-line diagnosed by optical emission spectra so as to char- acterize the discharge system and to do spade work for the optimization of the technical parameters for future commercial production of methane coupling under plasmas. The study was focused on a calculation method for the online diagnosis of the electron excitation temperature in CH4+H2 discharge plasma at atmospheric pressure. The diagnostic method is easy, efficient and fairly precise. A serious er- ror in a literature was corrected during the reasoning of its series of equations formerly used to calculate electron temperatures in plasmas.
CUI JinHua1, XU ZhenFeng2, ZHANG JiaLiang3↑, NIE QiuYue3, XU GenHui4 & REN LongLiang5 1 Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116021, China
In this paper, a feasible scheme is reported for the detection and identification of trace alcohol congeners that have identical elemental composition using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy （LIBS）. In the scheme, an intensive pulsed laser is used to break down trace alcohol samples and the optical emission spectra of the induced plasma are collected for the detection and identifq ication of alcohol molecules. In order to prepare trace alcohol samples, pure ethanol or methanol is bubbled by argon carrier gas and then mixed into matrix gases. The key issue for the scheme is to constitute indices from the LIBS data of the alcohol samples. Two indices are found to be suitable for alcohol detection and identification. One is the emission intensity ratio （denoted as H/C） of the hydrogen line （653.3 nm） to the carbon line （247.9 nm） for identification and the other is the ratio of the carbon line （as C/Ar） or the hydrogen line （as H/Ar） to the argon lines （866.7 nm） for quantitative detection. The calibration experiment result shows that the index H/C is specific for alcohol congeners while almost being independent of alcohol concentration. In detail, the H/C keeps a specific constant of 34 and 23 respectively for ethanol and methanol. In the meanwhile, the C/Ar and H/Ar indices respond almost linearly to the alcohol concentration below 1300 ppm, and are therefore competent for concentration measurement. With the indices, trace alcohol concentration measurement achieves a limit of 140 ppm using a laser pulse energy of 300 mJ.
