Prof. Davide Curreli
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
The Plasma-Water Interface:
Modern Challenges and New
Software Tools
The interaction of low-temperature plasmas with liquid wa-
ter is a fundamental problem in many applications, from
plasma medicine to chemical processing, and more generally
where the generation of reactive oxygen and nitrogen spe-
cies and/or of solvated electrons is of utmost importance.
However, characterization of the plasma-
liquid interface
presents several challenges, both experimentally and com-
putationally,
due to the multiscale and multiphysics nature
of the problem. In this seminar we provide an
overview of
recent modeling developments on plasma-
liquid interfaces,
presenting the new software package Zapdos-CRANE, based
on the MOOSE finite-element framework. We provide a brief
overview of the software, showing few case studies of inter-
est. The model was used to study a humid argon DC plasma
over a water surface, operated in both cathodic and anodic
modes. In this system, one of the reactions of interest is the
formation and dissolution of hydroxide (OH) radicals, which
subsequently produce hydrogen peroxide. The model allows
the investigation of the main plasma-
chemistry reaction
mechanisms for peroxide production w
ith the plasma. The
analysis reveals that hydrogen peroxide is increased during
anodic plasma treatment due to elevated water vapor disso-
ciation reactions near the interface. Finally, the role of solv-
ated electrons generated during cathodic plasma operations
is discussed, showing how they directly degrade hydrogen
peroxide in the aqueous phase, inhibiting its accumulation.
About the Speaker:
Davide Curreli is Associate Professor in the Department of Nuclear, Plasma,
and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-
Champaign, and at the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications. Dr. Curreli leads the Laboratory for Computational Plasma
Physics at Illinois. His research activities focus on computational modeling of plasma material in-
teractions and plasma chemistry of low-temperature plasmas for fusion and nuclear applications.
Among his current research activities, Dr.
Curreli is coordinator of the Nuclear Fireball Plasma
Chemistry activities within the University Research Alliance funded by DOD DTRA. His group active-
ly works on multiple projects in Fusion Energy Sciences. Dr. Curreli is Donald Biggar Willett Faculty
Scholar at the University of Illinois.