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No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1978.

The adsorption and interaction of HCN has been studied on (a) copper oxides on crystalline chromia, (b) mixtures of chromium (III) oxide and copper oxides on silica, and (c) mixtures of Cr(VI)O3 and CuO on silica. The adsorption and reaction of both HCN and C2N2 on Cr(VI)O3/SiO2 has also been studied. The work has involved gravimetric studies with a vacuum microbalance, infra-red spectroscopy of adsorbed species, and mass spectroscopic analysis of products. HCN contact at 293 K with both CuO/a-Cr2O3 and CuO-Cr2O3/SiO2 samples led to the slow release of cyanogen. The cyanogen reaction was shown to be occurring on the copper ions of the surface accompanied by reduction to cuprous hydroxide. Some HCN adsorption also occurred on this surface and on the chromia part of the surface without oxidation to cyanogen. On heating, some HCN was desorbed intact but most was oxidised to CO2 with some retention of nitrogen compounds on the surface. The infra-red work indicated that on the copper oxide part of the surface this oxidation occurred via an isocyanate, NCO, intermediate. On the chromia part of the surface HCN adsorption produced an amide species which decomposed to CO2 and N2. Pre-reduction of the surface suppressed cyanogen formation upon HCN adsorption, although considerable oxidation still occurred on heating. On Cr(VI)O3/Aerosil both HCN and C2N2 formed surface amides. On heating, there was some decomposition to CO2 and N2, as with Cr (III) oxide, but also in some cases sublimation of oxamide. With Cr(VI)O3-Cu(II)O/Aerosil, much less gaseous C2N2 was produced from HCN than on Cr2O3/CuO/Silica. This suggests that cyanogen was being preferentially adsorbed on the Cr(VI)O3. The results show the importance of the oxidation states of Cu and Cr in determining the surface reactions of HCN.

The physics of partially neutralized plasmas is largely unexplored, partly because of the difficulty of confining such plasmas. Plasmas are confined in a stellarator without the need for a plasma current, and regardless of the degree of neutralization. The Columbia Non-neutral Torus (CNT) is a stellarator dedicated to the study of non-neutral, and partially neutralized plasmas. This thesis describes the first systematic studies of plasmas of arbitrary neutrality. The degree of neutralization of the plasma can be parameterized through the quantity η ≡ |n_e - Z n_i|/|n_e + Z n_i|. In CNT, η can be varied continuously from pure electron (η = 1) to quasi-neutral (η ≈ 0) by adjusting the neutral pressure in the chamber, which controls the volumetric ionization rate. Pure electron plasmas are in macroscopically stable equilibria, and have strong self electric potentials dictated by the emitter filament bias voltage on the magnetic axis. As η decreases, the plasma potential decouples from the emitter, and spontaneous fluctuations begin to appear. Partially neutralized plasmas (10^-3 < η < 10^-1) generally exhibit multi-mode oscillations in CNT. However, when magnetized ions are present, the electron-rich plasma oscillates at a single dominant mode (20 - 100 kHz). As the plasma approaches quasi-neutrality (η < 10^-5), it also reverts to single mode behavior (1 - 20 kHz). A parametric characterization of the single mode fluctuations detected in plasmas of arbitrary neutrality is presented in this thesis along with measurements of the spatial structure of the oscillations. The single mode fluctuations observed for η ≈ 0.01 to 0.8 are identified as an ion resonant instability propagating close to the E × B velocity of the plasma. The experiments also show that these oscillations present a poloidal mode number m = 1, and a toroidal number n = 0, which is identical to the spatial structure of the diocotron instability in pure-toroidal traps, and implies that the ion-driven instability breaks parallel force balance and the conservation of poloidal flux in CNT. The low frequency oscillations detected in the quasi-neutral regime are a global instability convected by the E × B flow of the plasma. In this case, the mode aligns almost perfectly with the field lines, and presents a resonant m = 3 poloidal structure.

The Columbia Non-neutral Torus (CNT) is the first experiment designed to create and study small Debye length non-neutral plasmas confined by magnetic surfaces. This thesis describes experimental confinement studies of non-neutral plasmas on magnetic surfaces in CNT. Open orbits exist in CNT resulting in electron loss rates that are much faster than initially predicted. For this reason a conforming boundary was designed and installed to address what is believed to be the primary cause of open orbits: the existence of a sizable mismatch between the electrostatic potential surfaces and the magnetic surfaces. After installation a record confinement time of 337 ms was measured, more than an order of magnitude improvement over the previous 20 ms record. This improvement was a combination of the predicted improvement in orbit quality, a reduced Debye length that resulted in decreased transport due to the perturbing insulated rods, and improved operating parameters not indicative of any new physics. The perturbation caused by the insulated rods that hold emitters on axis in CNT is a source of electron transport and would provide a loss mechanism for positrons in future positron-electron plasma experiments. For these reasons an emitter capable of creating plasmas then being removed faster than the confinement time was built and installed. Measurements of plasma decay after emitter retraction indicate that ion accumulation reduces the length of time that plasmas are confined. Plasmas have been measured after retraction with decay times as long as 92 ms after the emitter has left the last closed flux surface. Experimental observations show that obstructing one side of an emitting filament with a nearby insulator substantially improves confinement. As a result, experiments have been performed to determine whether a two stream instability affects confinement in CNT. Results indicate that the improvement is not caused by reducing a two stream instability. Instead, the improvement is a result of altering the sheath of the emitting filament which allows the plasma to reach an equilibrium state with improved confinement. These measurements agree with confinement times for plasmas created by unobstructed emission that are in the same improved confinement state.

This thesis describes the first results of passive and active MHD spectroscopy experiments on the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) device using a new array of magnetic diagnostics and coils. The capabilities of the HBT-EP experiment are significantly extended with the installation of a new adjustable conducting wall, high-power modular control coil arrays, and an extensive set of 216 magnetic sensors that allow simultaneous high-resolution detection of multimode MHD phenomena. The design, construction, and calibration of this system are described. The capability of this new magnetic diagnostic set is demonstrated by biorthogonal decomposition analysis of passive measurements of rotating resistive wall modes (RWMs). A strong multimode effect is detected for the first time in HBT-EP plasmas consisting of the simultaneous existence of m/n=3/1 and 6/2 RWMs which cause the plasma to evolve in a non-rigid multimode manner. Additional mode numbers as high as n=3 are also observed. Active MHD spectroscopy experiments using a "phase-flip" resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) are able to excite a clear three-dimensional response. By adjusting the helicity of the magnetic field applied by the control coils, the driven plasma response is shown to be predominantly resonant field amplification. When the amplitude of the applied field is not too large, the driven resonant response appears linear, independent of the presence of background MHD phenomena and consistent with the predictions of single-helicity modeling of kink mode dynamics. The spatial structures of both the naturally rotating kink mode and the externally driven response are observed to be identical, while the temporal evolutions are approximately independent. The phase-flip driven plasma response is measured as a function of edge safety factor, plasma rotation, and the amplitude of the applied magnetic perturbation. As the RMP amplitude increases, the plasma response is shown to be linear, saturated, and ultimately, disruptive.