Influence of Time Duration of Intermittent Feedstock Feeding on Si Nanoparticle Synthesis in Modulated Thermal Plasmas

Abstract

This paper describes a numerical study about influence of time duration of intermittent feedstock feeding on Si nanoparticle formation using the pulse-modulated induced thermal plasma (PMITP) with the time controlled feedstock feeding (TCFF). The PMITP+TCFF method has been developed originally by our group to synthesize large amounts of nanoparticles. We have also developed a numerical model for Si nanoparticle synthesis including nanoparticle nucleation and growth in thermal plasma temperature and gas flow fields in PMITP+TCFF method. Using this model, we investigated the temperature variation in the PMITP, and then the particle size distribution of synthesized nanoparticles for different feeding time durations of the feedstock for Ar-PMITP. As a result, it was found that shorter feeding time durations of the feedstock decreases the size of the produced nanoparticles and increases the amount of nanoparticles produced.