DC-excited cold atmospheric pressure plasmas

In view of the increasingly wide range of applications, different approaches are nowadays being investigated to generate non-thermal plasmas operating at atmospheric pressure. In this paper the focus is on DC-excited atmospheric pressure discharges in air. The basic electrode configuration is that of a pin-to-plate corona. First, the convective stabilisation mechanism and the existence of a glow regime in this type of discharge are discussed. Next, the application potential is illustrated with examples from the fields of surface treatment and gas cleaning.