He-Ping Li

Enhanced UV photoresponse from heterostructured Ag–ZnO nanowires

Photoactive material consisting of heterogeneous Ag–ZnO nanowires (NWs) was prepared by electrospinning. Tunable UV photodetectors fabricated using Ag–ZnO NWs have shown high sensitivity up to over four orders of magnitude with relatively fast and stable response speed. The mechanism for this colossal photoconductivity is elucidated by means of the efficient exciton dissociation under UV illumination due to accelerated electron transfer from conduction band of ZnO to Ag nanoparticles. The facile process proposed here may pave the way for designing sensing and imaging systems.

Genetic effects of radio-frequency, atmospheric-pressure glow discharges with helium

Due to low gas temperatures and high densities of active species, atmospheric-pressure glow discharges (APGDs) would have potential applications in the fields of plasma-based sterilization, gene mutation, etc. In this letter, the genetic effects of helium radio-frequency APGD plasmas with the plasmid DNA and oligonucleotide as the treated biomaterials are presented. The experimental results show that it is the chemically active species, instead of heat, ultraviolet radiation, intense electric field, and/or charged particles, that break the double chains of the plasmid DNA. The genetic effects depend on the plasma operating parameters, e.g., power input, helium flow rate, processing distance, time, etc.

Atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) as a new powerful mutagenesis tool

Developing rapid and diverse microbial mutation tool is of importance to strain modification. In this review, a new mutagenesis method for microbial mutation breeding using the radio-frequency atmospheric-pressure glow discharge (RF APGD) plasma jets is summarized. Based on the experimental study, the helium RF APGD plasma jet has been found to be able to change the DNA sequences significantly, indicating that the RF APGD plasma jet would be a powerful tool for the microbial mutagenesis with its outstanding features, such as the low and controllable gas temperatures, abundant chemically reactive species, rapid mutation, high operation flexibility, etc. Then, with the RF APGD plasma generator as the core component, a mutation machine named as atmospheric and room temperature plasma (ARTP) mutation system has been developed and successfully employed for the mutation breeding of more than 40 kinds of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and microalgae. Finally, the prospect of the ARTP mutagenesis is discussed.

Novel mutation breeding method for Streptomyces avermitilis using an atmospheric pressure glow discharge plasma

Aims:  Avermectins are major antiparasitic agents used commercially in animal health, agriculture and human infections. To improve the fermentation efficiency of avermectins, for the first time a plasma jet generated by a novel atmospheric pressure glow discharge (APGD) was employed to generate mutations in Streptomyces avermitilis.

Three-Dimensional Modeling of the Turbulent Plasma Jet Impinging upon a Flat Plate and with Transverse Particle and Carrier-Gas Injection

Modeling results are presented concerning the turbulent thermal plasma jet impinging normally on a substrate and with transverse injection of feedstock particles and their carrier gas from a single injection tube. The k-ε two-equation model is employed to model the turbulence, and particle dispersion is studied considering the interaction between the moving particles and turbulent eddies and considering the effect on particle trajectories of the random variation of the turbulent fluctuating velocities in their magnitude and direction. A well-validated three-dimensional (3-D) computer code is used in the modeling. The 3-D effects due to the carrier gas injection on the jet flow field and thus on the particle trajectories and heating histories are shown to be appreciable. The radial location of the injection tube with respect to the plasma jet is shown to be a critical parameter for the study of 3-D effects, besides the carrier-gas/plasma stream mass flux ratio. Particle dispersion considerably widens the distribution of the particle trajectories and heating histories. In addition, although pertinent swirl number is often rather small, swirling may also affect the modeling results.

Rapid mutation of Spirulina platensis by a new mutagenesis system of atmospheric and room temperature plasmas (ARTP) and generation of a mutant library with diverse phenotypes.

In this paper, we aimed to improve the carbohydrate productivity of Spirulina platensis by generating mutants with increased carbohydrate content and growth rate. ARTP was used as a new mutagenesis tool to generate a mutant library of S. platensis with diverse phenotypes. Protocol for rapid mutation of S. platensis by 60 s treatment with helium driven ARTP and high throughput screening method of the mutants using the 96-well microplate and microplate reader was established. A mutant library of 62 mutants was then constructed and ideal mutants were selected out. The characteristics of the mutants after the mutagenesis inclined to be stable after around 9th subculture, where the total mutation frequency and positive mutation frequency in terms of specific growth rate reached 45% and 25%, respectively. The mutants in mutant library showed diverse phenotypes in terms of cell growth rate, carbohydrate content and flocculation intensity. The positive mutation frequency in terms of cellular carbohydrate content with the increase by more than 20% percent than the wild strain was 32.3%. Compared with the wild strain, the representative mutants 3-A10 and 3-B2 showed 40.3% and 78.0% increase in carbohydrate content, respectively, while the mutant 4-B3 showed 10.5% increase in specific growth rate. The carbohydrate contents of the representative mutants were stable during different subcultures, indicating high genetic stability. ARTP was demonstrated to be an effective and non-GMO mutagenesis tool to generate the mutant library for multicellular microalgae.

Effect of a near-cathode sheath on heat transfer in high-pressure arc plasmas

Numerical simulation of a high-pressure arc discharge has been performed with a self-consistent modelling of most of the components, including the electrodes, and the interactions between them. In particular, the arc column and the cathodic part of the discharge are simulated by means of a two-temperature hydrodynamic model and of a model of nonlinear surface heating, respectively. Simulation results are given for a free-burning arc in atmospheric-pressure argon in the range of arc currents from 10 to 200 A. It is found that the electric power deposited into the near-cathode layer is transported not only to the cathode but also to the arc column, an effect that cannot be described by the local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) model. The electron enthalpy transport substantially exceeds the net contribution of thermal conduction by the electrons and heavy particles and is thus the dominating mechanism of energy transfer from the near-cathode layer to the arc column. The predicted gas temperatures along the arc axis in the arc column using the LTE model are much higher than the calculated electron and heavy-particle temperatures (~1000–2000 K or higher) under the same operation conditions using the non-equilibrium model with the consideration of the near-cathode sheath for the cases studied in the present paper. Studies on the influences of the cathode shapes and metal vapour contaminations on the arc characteristics will be conducted in future work.

The reactive thermal conductivity for a two-temperature plasma

Reliable plasma thermodynamic and transport properties are required for the numerical simulation of thermal plasma systems. Although many databases for the thermal plasma properties at the local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) state have been compiled, the database for the two-temperature (2-T) plasma is still far from completeness. There exits considerable confusion in the literature concerning how to calculate the thermodynamic and transport properties, including the reactive thermal conductivity, for the 2-T plasma. In this paper, a detailed derivation for the reactive thermal conductivity of the 2-T argon plasma is presented using two different approaches. The present calculated results for the reactive thermal conductivity are identical to those due to Hsu [5] for the special case of LTE plasma, but are different when the electron temperature is higher than the heavy-particle temperature, the difference increases with increasing electron/heavy-particle temperature ratio, hð¼ Te=ThÞ, and becomes quite significant at high h. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Three-dimensional modelling of a dc non-transferred arc plasma torch

Three-dimensional (3D) modelling results are presented concerning a direct current (dc) non-transferred arc plasma torch with axisymmetrical geometrical configuration and axisymmetrical boundary conditions. It is shown that the arc is locally attached at the anode surface of the plasma torch, and the heat transfer and plasma flow within the torch are of 3D features. The predicted arc root location at the anode surface and arc voltage of the torch are very consistent with corresponding experimental results.

Discharge characteristics of atmospheric-pressure radio-frequency glow discharges with argon/nitrogen

In this letter, atmospheric-pressure glow discharges in γ mode with argon/nitrogen as the plasma-forming gas using water-cooled, bare copper electrodes driven by radio-frequency power supply at 13.56MHz are achieved. The preliminary studies on the discharge characteristics show that, induced by the α-γ coexisting mode or γ mode discharge of argon, argon-nitrogen mixture with any mixing ratios, even pure nitrogen, can be employed to generate the stable γ mode radio-frequency, atmospheric-pressure glow discharges and the discharge voltage rises with increasing the fraction of nitrogen in the argon-nitrogen mixture for a constant total gas flow rate.