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The plasma-based aerosol process developed for the direct coating of particles in gases with silicon oxide in a continuous chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process is presented. It is shown that non-thermal plasma filaments induced in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure trigger post-DBD gas phase reactions. DBD operating conditions are first scanned to produce ozone and dinitrogen pentoxide. In the selected conditions, these plasma species react with gaseous tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) precursor downstream of the DBD. The gaseous intermediates then condense on the surface of nanoparticles and self-reactions lead to homogeneous solid SiO x coatings, with thickness from nanometer to micrometer. This confirms the interest of post-DBD injection of the organo-silicon precursor to achieve stable production of actives species with subsequent controlled thickness of SiO x coatings. SiO x coatings of spherical and agglomerated metal and metal oxide nanoparticles (Pt, CuO, TiO₂) are achieved. In the selected DBD operating conditions, the thickness of homogeneous nanometer sized coatings of spherical nanoparticles depends on the reaction duration and on the precursor concentration. For agglomerates, operating conditions can be tuned to cover preferentially the interparticle contact zones between primary particles, shifting the sintering of platinum agglomerates to much higher temperatures than the usual sintering temperature. Potential applications for enhanced thermal stability and tunable photoactivity of coated agglomerates are presented.

Two lab-scale self-cleaning filters based on dielectric barrier discharges in air at atmospheric pressure have been developed and tested. Experimental results on aerosol removal by charging and electro-collection are presented versus plasma and hydrodynamic parameters for monodisperse aerosol from 20 nm to 1.2 μm. For classical atmospheric aerosol, the average mass and number filtration efficiencies exceed 95% and 87%, respectively in the most penetrating size range (100-700 nm). The frequency of the applied voltage controls the amplitude of the oscillation of charged particle and can be adjusted to favour either filtration or cleaning. Low frequency (1 kHz) is suitable for electro-collection, while high frequency (60 kHz) is favourable for filter cleaning. Electrical characterization and filter efficiency are two indicators of the filter loading. The durations of both filtration step at maximal efficiency and cleaning step depends on the deposited mass, the surface input power and subsequent dielectric surface temperature., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)