Effect of oxygen content in the ultrafine tungsten powder fabricated by electrical explosion of wire method on the behvior of spark plasma sintering was investigated. The initial oxygen content of 6.5 wt% of as-fabricated tungsten powder was reduced to 2.3 and 0.7 wt% for the powders which were reduction-treated at 400˚C for 2 hour and at 500˚C for 1h in hydrogen atmosphere, respectively. The reduction-treated tungsten powders were spark-plasma sintered at 1200-1600˚C for 100-3600 sec. with applied pressure of 50 MPa under vacuum of 0.133 Pa. Maximun sindered density of 97% relative density was obtained under the condition of 1600˚C for 1h from the tungsten powder with 0.7 wt% oxygen. Sintering activation energy of 95.85kJ/mol-1 was obtained, which is remarkably smaller than the reported ones of 380~460kJ/mol-1 for pressureless sintering of micron-scale tungsten powders.

In this study, an oxygen plasma treatment was used as a low temperature debinding method to form a conductive copper feature on a flexible substrate using a direct printing process. To demonstrate this concept, conductive copper patterns were formed on polyimide films using a copper nanoparticle-based paste with polymeric binders and dispersing agents and a screen printing method. Thermal and oxygen plasma treatments were utilized to remove the polymeric vehicle before a sintering of copper nanoparticles. The effect of the debinding methods on the phase, microstructure and electrical conductivity of the screen-printed patterns was systematically investigated by FE-SEM, TGA, XRD and four-point probe analysis. The patterns formed using oxygen plasma debinding showed the well-developed microstructure and the superior electrical conductivity compared with those of using thermal debinding.

In this work, the effects of atmospheric oxygen plasma treatment of carbon fibers on mechanical interfacial properties of carbon fibers-reinforced epoxy matrix composites was studied. The surface properties of the carbon fibers were determined by acid/base values, Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. Also, the crack resistance properties of the composites were investigated in critical stress intensity factor (KIC), and critical strain energy release rate mode II (GIIC) measurements. As experimental results, FT-IR of the carbon fibers showed that the carboxyl/ester groups (C=O) at 1632 cm-1 and hydroxyl group (O-H) at 3450 cm-1 were observed for the plasma treated carbon fibers, and the treated carbon fibers had the higher O-H peak intensity than that of the untreated ones. The XPS results also indicated that the O1S/C1S ratio of the carbon fiber surfaces treated by the oxygen plasma led to development of oxygen-containing functional groups. The mechanical interfacial properties of the composites, including KIC (critical stress intensity factor) and GIIC (critical strain energy release rate mode II), were also improved for the oxygen plasma-treated carbon fibersreinforced composites. These results could be explained that the oxygen plasma treatment played an important role to increase interfacial adhesions between carbon fibers and epoxy matrix resins in our composite system.

This study carried out a laboratory scale plasma reactor about the characteristics of chemically oxidative species (․OH, H2O2 and O3) produced in dielectric barrier discharge plasma. It was studied the influence of various parameters such as gas type, 1st voltage, oxygen flow rate, electric conductivity and pH of solution for the generation of the oxidant. H2O2 and O3.) H2O2 and O3 was measured by direct assay using absorption spectrophotometry. OH radical was measured indirectly by measuring the degradation of the RNO (N-Dimethyl-4-nitrosoaniline, indicator of the generation of OH radical). The experimental results showed that the effect of influent gases on RNO degradation was ranked in the following order: oxygen > air >> argon. The optimum 1st voltage for RNO degradation were 90 V. As the increased of 1st voltage, generated H2O2 and O3 concentration were increased. The intensity of the UV light emitted from oxygen-plasma discharge was lower than that of the sun light. The generated hydrogen peroxide concentration and ozone concentration was not high. Therefore it is suggested that the main mechanism of oxidation of the oxygen-plasma process is OH radical. The conductivity of the solution did not affected the generation of oxidative species. The higher pH, the lower H2O2 and O3 generation were observed. However, RNO degradation was not varied with the change of the solution pH.

Decomposition of non-biodegradable contaminants such as phenol contained in water was investigated using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactor in the aqueous solutions with continuous oxygen bubbling. Effects of various parameters on the removal of phenol in aqueous solution with high-voltage streamer discharge plasma are studied. In order to choose plasma gas, gas of three types (argon, air, oxygen) were investigated. After the selection of gas, effects of 1st voltage (80 ～220 V), oxygen flow rate (2 ～7 L/min), pH (3 ～11), and initial phenol concentration (12.5 ～100.0 mg/L) on phenol degradation and change of UV254 absorbance were investigated. Absorbance of UV254 can be used as an indirect indicator of phenol degradation and the generation and disappearance of the non-biodegradable organic compounds. Removal of phenol and COD were found to follow pseudo first-order kinetics. The removal rate constants for phenol and COD of phenol were 5.204 × 10-1 min-1 and 3.26 × 10-2 min-1, respectively.

This study investigated the application of experimental design methodology to optimization of conditions of air-plasma and oxygen-plasma oxidation of N, N-Dimethyl-4-nitrosoaniline (RNO). The reactions of RNO degradation were described as a function of the parameters of voltage (X1), gas flow rate (X2) and initial RNO concentration (X3) and modeled by the use of the central composite design. In pre-test, RNO degradation of the oxygen-plasma was higher than that of the air-plasma though low voltage and gas flow rate. The application of response surface methodology (RSM) yielded the following regression equation, which is an empirical relationship between the RNO removal efficiency and test variables in a coded unit: RNO removal efficiency (%) = 86.06 + 5.00X1 + 14.19X2 - 8.08X3 + 3.63X1X2 - 7.66X2 2 (air-plasma); RNO removal efficiency (%) = 88.06 + 4.18X1 + 2.25X2 - 4.91X3 + 2.35X1X3 + 2.66X1 2 + 1.72X3 2 (oxygen-plasma). In analysis of the main effect, air flow rate and initial RNO concentration were most important factor on RNO degradation in air-plasma and oxygen-plasma, respectively. Optimized conditions under specified range were obtained for the highest desirability at voltage 152.37 V, 135.49 V voltage and 5.79 L/min, 2.82 L/min gas flow rate and 25.65 mg/L, 34.94 mg/L initial RNO concentration for air-plasma and oxygen-plasma, respectively.