{"id":90071,"date":"2019-04-28T23:42:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T06:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/cold-plasma-torch-produces-a-cleansing-flame-that-never-consumes"},"modified":"2019-04-28T23:42:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T06:42:20","slug":"cold-plasma-torch-produces-a-cleansing-flame-that-never-consumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/cold-plasma-torch-produces-a-cleansing-flame-that-never-consumes","title":{"rendered":"Cold Plasma Torch Produces a Cleansing Flame that Never Consumes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jRZkrrcDKb0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s basically a lightsaber. Except smaller. And with an invisible blade. And cold to the touch. But other than that, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jRZkrrcDKb0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this homebrew cold plasma torch<\/a> (YouTube, embedded below) is just like the Jedi\u2019s choice in elegant weaponry.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps we shouldn\u2019t kid [Justin] given how hard he worked on this project \u2013 seventeen prototypes before hitting on the version seen in the video below \u2013 but he himself notes the underwhelming appearance of the torch without the benefit of long-exposure photography. That doesn\u2019t detract from how cool this build is, pun intended. As [Justin] explains, cold plasma or non-equilibrium plasma is an ionized stream of gas where the electron temperature is much hotter than the temperature of the heavier, more thermally conductive species in the stream. It\u2019s pretty common stuff, seen commercially in everything from mercury vapor lamps to microbial sterilization.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the latter use that piqued [Justin]\u2019s interest and resulted in a solid year of prototyping before dialing in a design using a flyback transformer to delivery the high voltage to a stream of argon flowing inside a capillary tube. The quartz tube acts as a dielectric that keeps electrons from escaping and allows argon to be ionized and wafted gently from the tube before it can reach thermal equilibrium. The result is a faint blue glowing flame that\u2019s barely above room temperature but still has all the reactive properties of a plasma. The video shows all the details of construction and shows the torch in action.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2019\/04\/28\/cold-plasma-torch-produces-a-cleansing-flame-that-never-consumes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s basically a lightsaber. Except smaller. And with an invisible blade. And cold to the touch. But other than that, this homebrew cold plasma torch (YouTube, embedded below) is just like the Jedi\u2019s choice in elegant weaponry. Perhaps we shouldn\u2019t kid [Justin] given how hard he worked on this project \u2013 seventeen prototypes before hitting [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2008],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/507"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}