Interaction of positive streamers in air with bubbles floating on liquid surfaces: conductive and dielectric bubbles

The interaction of plasmas sustained in humid air with liquids produces reactive species in both the gas phase and liquid for applications ranging from medicine to agriculture. In several experiments, enhanced liquid reactivity has been produced when the liquid is a foam or a bubble coated liquid. To investigate the phenomena of streamers interacting with bubbles a two-dimensional computational investigation has been performed of streamer initiation and propagation on and inside hemispherical bubble-shells floating on a liquid surface. Following prior experiments, water and oil bubble-shells with an electrode located outside and inside the bubble were investigated. We found that positive air streamers interact differently with conductive water and dielectric oil bubbles. The streamer propagates along the external surface of a water bubble while not penetrating through the bubble due to screening of the electric field by the conducting shell. If the electrode is inserted inside the bubble, the path of the streamer depends on how deeply the electrode penetrates. For shallow penetration, the streamer propagates along the inner surface of the bubble. Due to the low conductivity of oil bubble-shells, the electric field from an external electrode penetrates into the interior of the bubble. The streamer can then be re-initiated inside the bubble. (paper)