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An Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Setup to Investigate the Reactive Species Formation
Published on: November 3, 2016
Investigation of the requirements for plasma-induced polymerization of alcohols
Hiroshi Matsuura1, Shuichi Ushiba, Mamoru Komatsu
1Intelligent Systems Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba 305-8564, Japan. hiroshi-matsuura@aist.go.jp
Abstract:
We analyzed the requirements for plasma-induced alcohol polymerization by comparing the reactions of several types of aliphatic alcohols and alkanes. The experiments revealed that alcohol polymerization requires the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen into alcohol. The OH group in alcohol physically contributes to initiate the airborne plasma reactions with its permittivity. However, the group chemically works to inhibit the fixation of nitrogen and successive polymerization of alcohols. Our study demonstrates that the ratio of OH groups per weight percent of each molecule decides the feasibility of the polymerization and the properties of the polymers.
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