Adir José Moreira

Sterilization by pure oxygen plasma and by oxygen-hydrogen peroxide plasma: an efficacy study.

Plasma is an innovative sterilization method characterized by a low toxicity to operators and patients, and also by its operation at temperatures close to room temperatures. The use of different parameters for this method of sterilization and the corresponding results were analyzed in this study. A low-pressure inductive discharge was used to study the plasma sterilization processes. Oxygen and a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen peroxide were used as plasma source gases. The efficacy of the processes using different combinations of parameters such as plasma-generation method, type of gas, pressure, gas flow rate, temperature, power, and exposure time was evaluated. Two phases were developed for the processes, one using pure oxygen and the other a mixture of gases. Bacillus subtilis var. niger ATCC 9372 (Bacillus atrophaeus) spores inoculated on glass coverslips were used as biological indicators to evaluate the efficacy of the processes. All cycles were carried out in triplicate for different sublethal exposure times to calculate the D value by the enumeration method. The pour-plate technique was used to quantify the spores. D values of between 8 and 3 min were obtained. Best results were achieved at high power levels (350 and 400 W) using pure oxygen, showing that plasma sterilization is a promising alternative to other sterilization methods.

Platinum nanoparticle deposition on polymeric membranes for fuel cell applications

This work aimed to show an alternative to produce platinum nanoparticles directly on a polymeric membrane using plasma technique, in order to make these nanoparticles adhere to the membrane, in size, shape and homogeneity controlled by the process without damaging the polymeric material. In this manner the cells production time is reduced since the catalyst is directly deposited on the polymeric membrane; the time of the process is approximately five minutes for each side of the membrane, and the total time for each membrane is 10 minutes. With this exposure time, and the advantage of controlling the other parameters such as pressure, RF power, gas flow rate and temperature of the electrode, it was possible to obtain platinum nanoparticles with dimensions of about 50 nm scattered homogenously on the membrane, without damaging the structure of the polymeric material and, consequently, affecting its performance. Together with platinum nanoparticles were also deposited carbon nanoparticles, so that these acted as catalyst support, avoiding self poisoning. Electrochemical activity tests were performed to test the efficiency of the cell where it was exposed to different pressures and flow rates of O2 and H2, reaching open-circuit voltage of 750 mVolts.

Low Pressure Plasma Study for Platinum Nanoparticles Synthesis

The main purpose of this work was to show that by using low-pressure plasma it is possible to obtain platinum nanoparticles with uniform size and shape and then apply these nanoparticles in order t...

Obtention of polymeric membrane fuel cells by low pressure plasma technique: Evaluation of total cell efficiency by function on the amount of platinum and the thickness of the deposited carbon support

This work aimed to obtain catalytic support over polymeric membrane building a fuel cell using low pressure plasma technique. For this, polymeric membranes were coated with carbon layer and platinum nanoparticles. The procedures were performed in separate steps in order to obtain firstly carbon layer and catalytic platinum nanoparticles. In the first step, the plasma processes were carried methane in order to obtain carbon layer over the polymeric membrane. At this stage, in order to obtain different thicknesses, were made several processes, reaching a thickness of 0.36μm to 1.4μm. The second step was to get the platinum nanoparticles on the carbon layer. For this, was used a platinum solid source and argon plasma. The study relied primarily on assessing the influence of the carbon layer on the performance of fuel cell. Compared with the commercial processes, it was observed that the results for fuel cells obtained by plasma have a better electric contact on three cell layers (catalyst - electrolyte - reagent). By electrochemical activity test was possible observe increase of reverse voltage of 0.8 volts to 1.24 volts according to increase the thickness of the carbon layer. The same behavior was also observed in the analysis of total efficiency, which was limited to 50% of maximum efficiency of commercial cell due the thickness of the carbon layer deposited during the preparation of this study, indicating a greater thickness with carbon it is possible to achieve the same efficiency of cells better than commercial.