• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.1401-1411
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• 2019

Mycobacterial cell walls comprise thick and diverse lipids and glycolipids that act as a permeability barrier to antibiotics or other chemical agents. The use of OH radicals from a non-thermal plasma jet (NTPJ) for the inactivation of mycobacteria in aqueous solution was adopted as a novel approach. Addition of water vapor in a nitrogen plasma jet generated OH radicals, which converted to hydrogen peroxide ($H_2O_2$) that inactivated non-pathogenic Mycobacterium smegmatis and pathogenic Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv. A stable plasma plume was obtained from a nitrogen plasma jet with 1.91 W of power, killing Escherichia coli and mycobacteria effectively, whereas addition of catalase decreased the effects of the former. Mycobacteria were more resistant than E. coli to NTPJ treatment. Plasma treatment enhanced intracellular ROS production and upregulation of genes related to ROS stress responses (thiolrelated oxidoreductases, such as SseA and DoxX, and ferric uptake regulator furA). Morphological changes of M. smegmatis and M. tuberculosis H37Rv were observed after 5 min treatment with $N_2+H_2O$ plasma, but not of pre-incubated sample with catalase. This finding indicates that the bactericidal efficacy of NTPJ is related to the toxicity of OH and $H_2O_2$ radicals in cells. Therefore, our study suggests that NTPJ treatment may effectively control pulmonary infections caused by M. tuberculosis and nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) such as M. avium or M. abscessus in water.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.115-116
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.161.2-161.2
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• 2015

Melanin is a black pigment, responsible for hair and skin color. In order to find the melanin stimulatory technique which prove useful for a gray and a white hair-preventive agent or tanning agent, we developed atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) and tested for tyrosinase activity and melanin production in melanoma (B16F10) cells in vitro. We found plasma dose dependent increase in melanin production. To explore the contributing mechanism in melanin synthesis, intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and MAP kinase signaling pathways were studied. Furthermore, the development of plasma technology for melanin synthesis and planning for in-vivo future studies will be discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.45 no.11
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• pp.907-913
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• 2017

The performance of a spark jet driven by pulsed-arc plasma was investigated experimentally for various energy input. A high-speed jet (about 330 m/s) was obtained by rapid gas heating produced by 37 mJ of deposited energy per pulse. The peak velocity and penetration distance of the jet were proportional to the deposited power and the deposited energy per pulse, respectively. A smaller orifice diameter produces a higher velocity jet at lower energy levels. For the same deposited energy, higher-current pulses produce a higher jet velocity than higher-pulse-width pulses. A total deposited energy of about 10 mJ per pulse with a pulse duration of about $10{\mu}s$ was found to be the optimum for energy- efficient operation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.593-602
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• 1999

This paper presents combustion characteristics of LPG-air mixture ignited by the plasma jet in a cylindrical vessel with constant volume, in which our focus is placed on the multi-hole plug configuration. Four types of the plug configuration depending on the number of orifice and the arranged angle are considered, along with two cases of conventional spark ignition for comparison. Not only the flame propagation is photographed at intervals, but the pressure in the combustion chamber is also recorded through the entire combustion process. The results show that the plasma jet ignition enhances the overall combustion rate remarkably in comparison to the spark ignition by generating irregular flame front and penetrating through the unburned mixture. The combustion enhancement rate agrees favorably with the available data, which supports the validity of our experiment. Synthetically estimating, the two-hole sixty-degree plug appears to be the most desirable, in that the maximum pressure as well as the combustion duration is less affected by the sub-energy level than the others. It is also deduced that there may exist an optimal plug configuration capable of rapid combustion for a specific combustion chamber.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2012

Flows over a square cylinder with and without plasma actuation are numerically investigated to see whether plasma actuation can effectively modify vortex shedding from the cylinder and reduce the drag and lift fluctuations. In this study, a plasma synthetic jet actuator is mounted on the rear side of cylinder as a means of direct-wake control. The effect of plasma actuation is considered by adding a momentum forcing term in the Navier-Stokes equations. Results show that the reduction of mean drag and lift fluctuations is obtained for both steady and unsteady actuation. However, the steady actuation is better than the unsteady one in terms of mean drag as well as drag fluctuations. With the strong steady actuation considered, the interaction of two separating shear layers from rear corners is effectively weakened due to the interference of synthetic jets. It results in a merging of synthetic-jet and shear-layer vortices and the increase of vortex shedding frequency. On the other hand, the unsteady actuation generates pulsating synthetic jets in the near wake, but it does not change the vortex shedding frequency for the actuation frequencies considered in this study.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1533_1534
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• 2009

This paper presents an atmospheric micro glow plasma-jet device. The device consists of four components; a thin Ni anode, a porous alumina insulater, a stainless steel cathode and an aluminum case. The Ni anode is fabricated using micromachining technology. The anode has 10 holes, of which the hole diameter and the depth are $250{\mu}m$ and $60{\mu}m$, respectively. The discharge test is performed in nitrogen gas at atmospheric pressure for 20 kHz AC bias. The breakdown voltage is 3.5 kV at gas flow rate of 4 L/min and the the plasma-jet is blown out to ambient at 5.5 kV. In order to verify the characteristics of plasma, the current and the voltage of device are measured. The maximum temperature of plasma is $37^{\circ}C$. The plasma is well generated and stable at high voltage.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.57-63
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• 2017

In this study, the fundamental test for drag reduction is carried out by using a plasma generator. Fundamental test setup is constructed of visualization and drag measurement system. The schlieren technique is used to visualize the plasma counterflow in supersonic flow. The penetration of the plasma jet and the change of the flow structure are observed through visualization results. Load cell is used to confirm possibility of drag reduction. Results show that drag was reduced by 6.2% using plasma jet in supersonic flow.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.201-207
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• 2017

An electron-excited temperature ($T_{ex}$) is not determined by the Boltzmann plots only with the spectral data of $4p{\rightarrow}4s$ in an Ar-plasma jet operated with a low frequency of several tens of kHz and the low voltage of a few kV, while $T_{ex}$ can be obtained at least with the presence of a high energy-level transition ($5p{\rightarrow}4s$) in the high-voltage operation of 8 kV. The optical intensities of most spectra that are measured according to the voltage and the measuring position of the plasma column increase or decay exponentially at the same rate as that of the intensity variation; therefore, the excitation temperature is estimated by comparing the relative optical-intensity to that of a high voltage. In the low-voltage range of an Ar-jet operation, the electron-excitation temperature is estimated as being from 0.61 eV to 0.67 eV, and the corresponding radical density of the Ar-4p state is in the order of $10^{10}{\sim}10^{11}cm^{-3}$. The variation of the excitation temperature is almost linear in relation to the operation voltage and the position of the plasma plume, meaning that the variation rates of the electron-excitation temperature are 0.03 eV/kV for the voltage and 0.075 eV/cm along the plasma plume.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.90-97
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• 2019

Sparkjet actuator, also known as plasma synthetic jet actuator (PSJA), is an active flow control device that has possibility of controling supersonic flow. This actuator utilizes arc plasma to deposit energy onto the gas inside the cavity to raise temperature and pressure. A change in the state of the fluid inside the cavity generates pressure waves and momentum jet, and they are exhausted through out the orifice exit and disturb external flow field. Since the cavity flow is affected by arc plasma, which is an equilibrium plasma and have generated equilibrium flow, the equilibrium state of air should be considered in order to analyze the flow of sparkjet actuator. In this study, numerical program for equilibrium flow was developed for the use of sparkjet actuator analysis. The developed program was validated by comparing the time - accurate jet front positions with the reference result. Then, impulse characteristics of the actuator in the atmospheric quiescent air were explained.