Abstract
Solution droplets injected into a plasma jet experience a sequence of thermal, physical, and chemical processes. These include droplet breakup and collisions, solvent vaporization, solute precipitation and pyrolysis, formation of the product particles, sintering, and perhaps melting. Depending on plasma conditions, solution concentration, and the properties of the solvent and solute, different particle morphologies are produced. In this paper, a heat and mass transfer model for vaporizing solution droplets was used to investigate the influence of solvent type, initial salt content, and concentration. Temperature and composition dependent thermo-physical properties were used. Temperature and concentration distributions and variations of precursor droplets (cerous nitrate and zirconia acetate in water and ethanol) were predicted.
