Plasma Plasma Jet System with Glow Discharge Mechanism for Nanoparticle Surface Treatment: A Simulation Study

Plasma is a state of ionized gaseous substance which becomes electrically conductive to the point that having long-range of electric and magnetic fields dominate the behaviour of the substance. In addition, plasma treatment is one of the methods that can be used to improve the dispersion of nanoparticle, nanocomposite bonding, as well as the compatibility surface between polymer matrices and nanoparticle. Plasma jet is a plasma system which has been widely used in many applications especially for modification and treatment purposes. Since this method is still at an early stage of study, the specific design of plasma jet system for the purpose of nanoparticle surface treatment is still not existed yet. Therefore, the most effective plasma jet system is required to be designed and simulated in this study by concerning the plasma generation factors such as applied voltage and operating frequency. The effectiveness mechanism of plasma treatment can be promise by considering the system of plasma used as well as the classification of plasma discharge generated within 3 to 7 kV AC applied voltage and 10 to 20 kHz operating frequency. This study proposes the design and analysis of plasma jet which have been designed to obtain the most effective and efficient surface treatment process on the nanoparticle. The optimum voltage and frequency of high voltage supply to generate plasma jet are determined through simulation via COMSOL Multiphysics® software by investigating the electron density, ion density, and electron temperature produced from numerical computational. This study also involved in the measurement of plasma jet system with characteristic of plasma discharge. The results show that the most effective electron density and ion density produced throughout the ionization of working gas lies in the scale of 10
¹⁸
m
^-3
whereas the electron temperature produced lies between 1.00 to 2.00 eV in which producing an uniform and stable glow discharge.