Abstract
Atmospheric pressure plasmas have found applications in a wide variety of fields, from medicine to food processing. Most of these plasma applications rely on direct application, where the plasma source is in close contact with the area or product to be treated. This makes it hard to define a 'dose' with so many components of the plasma: charged and excited particles, UV photons, electromagnetic fields - especially when all of these products may exhibit synergistic effects. To simplify this, a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) based Remote and Enclosed Cold Atmospheric Plasma (ReCAP) source was produced, in which only the long-lived chem ical species are delivered to the treatment area. The ReCAP source allows for control over the plasma species produced by modifying the input flow rate, enabling both NOš„ species and ozone to be produced. The work presented in this thesis explores the chemical production from the ReCAP source, utilising a variety of techniques including optical emission spectroscopy (OES), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, chemiluminescence detection (CLD) and non-dispersive UV (NDUV) spectroscopy. While DBD sources are known for ozone generation, the NOš„ generation was compared to a representative state-of-the-art NOš„ generating discharge - the spark discharge. The ReCAP source was found to produce a comparable amount of NOš„ to the spark discharge, while also being able to function as an ozone generator. As a result of this research, a number of further test campaigns are suggested, to further gauge the elements of control that could be enabled on the plasma effluent, and to explore the wide range of potential applications.