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Estimation of Hydroxyl Radicals Produced by
Pulsed Discharge Inside Bubble in
Water Using Indigo Carmine
as Chemical Probe
Katsuyuki Takahashi , Ryosuke Konno, Naoya Satta, and Koichi Takaki, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— Amount of hydroxyl radicals produced by pulsed
discharge inside bubble in water is estimated with the decom-
position of indigo carmine as a chemical probe. Argon gas
(99.99 vol.% purity) is injected into the water through a vertically
positioned glass tube, in which high-voltage wire electrode is
placed to generate plasmas at low applied voltage. Amount of the
indigo carmine decomposition increases with increasing indigo
carmine concentration and held a constant value at 1.5×10−6 mol
when indigo carmine concentration is higher than 2.5 mM. The
amount of hydroxyl radicals is estimated as 1.3 × 10−6 mol by
measuring the hydrogen peroxide production in the potassium
solution, which corresponds to the amount of hydroxyl radicals
obtained from indigo carmine decomposition. The energy yield
of dissolved hydroxyl radical, which contributes to react with the
solutes in the solutions, is estimated to be 4 ∼ 5 × 10−9 mol/J.
Index Terms— Discharge inside bubble, hydrogen peroxide,
hydroxyl radical, pulsed power.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A PULSED discharge plasma in water and in contact
with water have been attracting much attention as a
promising technology in various fields such as agriculture [1],
healthcare [2], and environmental remediation [3], [4]. The
pulsed discharge plasma enables the instantaneous production
of a nonthermal plasma with various chemical species such
as hydroxyl radicals. Since hydroxyl radical is a powerful
oxidizing agent, it plays an important role in the decompo-
sition of chemical compounds and sterilization of bacteria
in water [3], [4]. In general, the energy efficiency for water
treatment decreases with increasing the conductivity of the
water, because of an increase in the energy dissipation by
the ohmic loss, which does not contribute to the production of
the chemical species [5], [6]. To solve this problem, gas–liquid
separated reactors have been proposed and their performance
has been evaluated experimentally [7]–[10]. In the reactors,
Manuscript received December 31, 2016; revised August 2, 2017 and
December 28, 2017; accepted January 9, 2018. The review of this
paper was arranged by Senior Editor W. Jiang. (Corresponding author:
Katsuyuki Takahashi.)
The authors are with Iwate University, Morioka 020-8551, Japan (e-mail:
ktaka@iwate-u.ac.jp).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2018.2792480
0093-3813 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
discharge plasma propagates along the surface of the gas
bubble in water [11].
In the case of the discharge in contact with water, such as
surface discharge and discharge inside bubble, the hydroxyl
radicals are produced by the plasma in the gas phase. The
hydroxyl radicals at the water interface dissolve into the water,
which contribute to chemical and biological reactions [12].
Therefore, the quantitative estimation of dissolved hydroxyl
radical in water is essential to elucidate the complex mech-
anisms of the radical transportation and improve the energy
efficiency of the systems. The amount of dissolved hydroxyl
radicals in water can be estimated using the chemical probe
such as terephthalic acid [13]–[15]. The 2-hydroxyterephthalic
acid is produced from the reaction of hydroxyl radical
with terephthalic acid, which acts as a fluorescent indica-
tor. Although terephthalic acid is a useful radical scavenger,
the yield of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid is very low [16], [17].
Hydrogen peroxide produced by the recombination reaction of
hydroxyl radical can be employed as the indicator of hydroxyl
radicals [18]–[20]. However, the hydrogen peroxide is also
produced in a gas phase [21]. These overestimations lead to
an incorrect estimation of dissolved hydroxyl radicals in water.
Generally, organic dyes which contain chromophore con-
sisted of high electron density functional groups such as
carbon–carbon double bond and azo bond can be decolorized
easily by electrophilic reactions by hydroxyl radicals. The
decolorization of dye solution indicates the cleavage of the
chromophore contained in the organic dye, which provides a
simple and useful method for hydroxyl radical estimation by
measuring the absorbance of the solution using a spectrometer.
In this paper, the amount of hydroxyl radicals produced by
pulsed discharge inside bubble in water is experimentally
estimated by the decomposition of indigo carmine, a com-
mon used organic dye. Since, the reaction rate of chemical
compounds and hydroxyl radicals depends on their concen-
trations, the influence of indigo carmine concentration on
the decomposition is investigated. The amounts of dissolved
hydroxyl radicals in water are also estimated by measuring
the hydrogen peroxide production and the chemical probe
method using terephthalic acid and compared. The hydrogen
peroxide is measured in the potassium chloride solution.
Chloride ion produced by dissolving potassium chloride acts
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE
Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup.
Fig. 2. Typical photograph of the streamer discharge.
as a radical scavenger and reacts with hydroxyl radical. There-
fore, hydrogen peroxide production decreases with increasing
the chloride ion. The hydroxyl radical dissolved into the
solution is estimated with the decrement of the hydrogen
peroxide production with increasing chloride ion.
II. E XPERIMENTAL S ETUP AND P ROCEDURE
Fig. 1 shows a schematic of the experimental setup. The dis-
charge reactor consists of a 30-mL glass vial (Nichiden Rika
Glass, SVG-30) [22]. Two glass tubes, in which the electrode
of stainless steel wire (0.2 mm in diameter) or tungsten wire
(0.2 mm in diameter) is inserted, are vertically immersed in the
aqueous solution in the vial (74-mm height, 30-mm diameter).
The inner diameter of both of the glass tubes is 0.8 mm. The
electrode of the stainless steel wire is used as a grounded
electrode and immersed in the aqueous solution. The length
between the tip of the stainless steel wire and the glass tube
is 20 mm. The electrode of the tungsten wire in the glass tube
is placed above the water. The gap length between the tip of
tungsten wire and glass tube is 10 mm. Argon gas (99.99 vol.%
purity) is injected into the reactor through the glass tube with
the tungsten wire. The gas flow rate is fixed at 30 mL/min. The
injected gas is ejected through another glass tube placed in the
center of the reactor. The pulsed voltage generated by a pulsed
power generator is applied to the tungsten wire to generate the
streamer discharge in the tube and the gas bubble. Fig. 2 shows
a typical photograph of the streamer discharge. The streamer
discharge is generated at the tip of wire and propagates into
the bubble [11].
Fig. 3. Typical waveforms of the output voltage and current.
The inductive energy storage system pulsed power gener-
ator using a static induction thyristor (SI-thyristor) [23] is
employed to generate high voltage with low charging voltage.
The primary circuit consists of a capacitor, a pulsed trans-
former, a SI-thyristor, and a MOSFET. During the MOSFET
switch is closed, the charge stored in the capacitor flows
through the pulse transformer, SI-thyristor, and MOSFET and
the inductive energy is stored in the inductance of the pulse
transformer. When the MOSFET switch is opened, the current
is interrupted by the rapid self-turn-OFF of the SI-thyristor.
As a result, pulsed voltage appears at the secondary circuit
of the pulse transformer. Fig. 3 shows the typical waveforms
of output voltage and current. The MOSFET is opened at the
time of 0 µs. While the negative voltage appears before the
MOSFET switch is opened owing to the current flows the pulse
transformer, the discharges does not occurs. The output voltage
has a peak value of 5.8 kV, and its pulsewidth is 0.21 µs in
full width at half maximum. The pulse repetition rate is varied
from 20 to 100 pulses per second (pps).
Indigo carmine, potassium chloride, and disodium tereph-
thalic acid solutions are prepared by dissolving indigo carmine
(Wako Pure Chemical Industries, JIS special grade, Acid
blue 74, CAS No. 860-22-0), potassium chloride (Wako
Pure Chemical Industries, JIS special grade), and disodium
terephthalic acid (Tokyo Kasei, EP grade), respectively, into
15 mL of purified water. The initial concentrations of the
solutes are varied up to 5 mM in indigo carmine solution,
up to 13 mM in chloride solution, and up to 10 mM in
terephthalic acid solution, respectively. The mixed solution
of isatin-5-sulfonic acid and indigo carmine is prepared by
dissolving isatin-5-sulfonic acid (Wako, 199-17151, for food
additives test) into 1-mM indigo carmine solution, and the
concentration is adjusted. In the experiment, the conductivity
of the solutions is adjusted to 1.55 mS/cm by adding potassium
nitrate (Wako Pure Chemical Industries, JIS special grade) in
order to fix the input energy into the reactor as 3.2 mJ/pulse.
The potassium nitrate addition is independent of the reactions
involving hydroxyl radical owing to its very low reaction rate
constant (5 × 105 M−1 s−1 ) [24].
The absorbance of the indigo carmine solution is mea-
sured by a spectrometer (Hitachi High-Technologies, U-5100).
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TAKAHASHI et al.: ESTIMATION OF HYDROXYL RADICALS PRODUCED BY PULSED DISCHARGE INSIDE BUBBLE IN WATER
Fig. 4. Intensity of the fluorescence as a function of 2-hydroxyterephthalic
acid concentration.
The amount of indigo carmine decomposition is obtained at
its maximum absorbance wavelength (610 nm) using
Amount of indigo carmine decomosition
= 15 × Concentration (initial)
Absorbance(initial) − Absorbance (at time t)
× [µmol]
Absorbance (initial)
(1)
where the concentration is the concentration of indigo carmine.
The concentration of hydrogen peroxide in the potassium
chloride solution is measured using Packtest (Kyoritsu
Chemical-Check Laboratory, WAK-H2O2). Packtest pro-
vides a simple measurement of hydrogen peroxide by
4-aminoantipyrine visual colorimetric method with enzyme.
The resolution of measurement is 0.01 mg/L with high repeata-
bility. The amount of hydroxyl radical consumed in reaction
with a chloride ion is obtained by multiplying the decrement
of hydrogen peroxide production with chloride ion addition
by two.
The fluorescent emission of the disodium terephthalic acid
solution is measured by a fluorospectrophotometer (JASCO,
FP-8300). The amount of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid is
obtained at its maximum intensity of the fluorescence wave-
length 423 nm, using the excitation wavelength of 313 nm.
To measure the concentration of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid,
the standard curve is prepared using 0.1, 0.2, and 0.5 mM of
2-hydroxyterephthalic acid dissolved into purified water with
sodium hydroxide (Wako Pure Chemical Industries, JIS special
grade) into 1-L purified water by a magnetic stirrer for 48 h.
The pH of the solution is 7.4. Fig. 4 shows the intensity of
the fluorescence as a function of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid
concentration. The intensity of fluorescence is linearly propor-
tional to the concentration. Amount of 2-hydroxyterephthalic
acid production is obtained using
Amount of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid
= 15 × 10−3
×{Intensity (initial) – Intensity (after treatment)} [µmol].
(2)
3
Fig. 5. Amount of indigo carmine decomposition as a function of initial
concentration of indigo carmine.
Chloride and potassium ions in the solutions do not interfere
with the measurements.
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
A. Estimation of Dissolved Hydroxyl Radicals
in the Solutions
Fig. 5 shows the amount of indigo carmine decomposition
as a function of initial concentration of indigo carmine. The
output voltage and pulse repetition rate are fixed at 5.8 kV
and 80 pps, respectively. The experiments are done three times.
The error bars show standard error. Treatment time is 20 min.
Amount of the indigo carmine decomposition increases with
increasing indigo carmine, and is held a constant value
at 1.5 × 10−6 mol, when the indigo carmine concentration
is higher than 2.5 mM. When high voltage pulse is applied to
the wire electrode, the streamer discharge propagates into the
bubble from the tip of the wire electrode [11]. Hydroxyl rad-
icals are mainly produced by the electron impact dissociation
of water molecules in the plasma, dissolved into the solution,
and then react with the solutes in the solution [25]. Hydroxyl
radicals also react with hydrogen radical and hydroxyl radicals
owing to their high reactivity. Therefore, dissolved hydroxyl
radicals in the indigo carmine solution are mainly consumed
in the following reactions [26]–[28]:
·
OH + indigo carmine
→ products k1 = 1.5 × 1010 M−1 s−1 (3)
·
OH +· OH → H2 O2 k2 = 5.5 × 109 M−1 s−1 (4)
·
OH +· H → H2 O k3 = 7.0 × 109 M−1 s−1 . (5)
The reaction rate of hydroxyl radical with indigo carmine
increases with increasing the concentration of indigo carmine,
and hydroxyl radical loss reactions, as shown in reac-
tions (4) and (5), decrease. Since, the amount of dissolved
hydroxyl radicals in the solution is limited, the amount of
indigo carmine decomposition is saturated with respect to an
increase of the concentration of indigo carmine. The 1 mol
of hydroxyl radicals is consumed with the decomposition
of 1 mol of indigo carmine, as shown in reaction (3). There-
fore, the amount of the decomposition of 1.5×10−6 mol, when
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE
Fig. 6. Amounts of hydrogen peroxide production and hydroxyl radical con-
sumed in the reaction with chloride ion as a function of initial concentration
of chloride ion.
indigo carmine concentration is higher than 2.5 mM in Fig. 5,
corresponds to the maximum amount of dissolved hydroxyl
radicals which can contribute to decompose indigo carmine in
the solution.
The recombination reaction of hydroxyl radicals, as shown
in (4), mainly contributes to the hydrogen peroxide production
in the solution [28]. Fig. 6 shows the amounts of hydrogen
peroxide production and hydroxyl radical consumed in the
reaction with chloride ion as a function of initial concen-
tration of chloride ion in the potassium chloride solution.
The experiments are done three times with high repeatability.
The amount of hydrogen peroxide production decreases with
increasing chloride ion concentration up to 9 mM. Since
chloride ion acts as a radical scavenger, dissolved hydroxyl
radicals in the solution react with chloride ion as the following
reaction [29]:
Cl− +· OH →· Cl + OH− k4 = 4.3 × 109 M−1 s−1
Thus, the hydrogen peroxide production decreases with
increasing the hydroxyl radical consumption by the reaction
with chloride ion. Reaction rate constant of hydroxyl radical
and chloride ion (k4 ; 4.3 × 109 M−1 s−1 ) is approximately
4.2 times lower than that of the hydroxyl radical and indigo
carmine (k1 ; 1.5×1010 M−1 s−1 ). This relationship is similar to
that between the minimum concentrations of chloride ion and
indigo carmine at which the amounts of hydrogen peroxide
production and the indigo carmine decomposition are held
constant as shown in Figs. 6 and 5, respectively. Assuming that
all the hydrogen peroxides are produced by the recombination
reactions of hydroxyl radicals, the amount of hydroxyl radical
consumed in the reaction with chloride ion is estimated using
Amount of · OH reacts with Cl−
= 2 × {(H2 O2 without Cl− )−(H2 O2 with Cl− )} [mol]
where hydrogen peroxide without chloride ion addition
is 4.3 × 10−6 , as shown in Fig. 6. The amount of hydroxyl
radicals consumed in the reaction with chloride ion is
1.3 × 10−6 mol with chloride ion concentration higher
than 9 mM. It is good agreements with the value estimated
by the indigo carmine decomposition (1.5 × 10−6 mol).
Fig. 7. Amount of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid production as a function of
initial concentration of disodium terephthalic acid.
These results show that this method is considered for accuracy
in the estimation of the dissolved hydroxyl radicals contributes
to react with solutes in the solution.
Fig. 7 shows the amount of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid
production in the disodium terephthalic acid solution as a
function of initial concentration of terephthalic acid. The
experiments are done three times with high repeatability. The
amount of 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid production increases
with increasing the terephthalic acid concentration. The
2-hydroxyterephthalic acid is produced by the following
reaction [13]:
·
OH + Terephthalic acid → 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid
k5 = 3.9 × 109 M−1 s−1 . (8)
Although, the 2-hydroxyterephthalic acid production is not
saturated with respect to an increase of terephthalic acid
(6) concentration, the hydroxyl radical production is predicted to
be 0.2 ∼ 0.3 × 10−6 mol. The 2-hydroxylterephthalic acid
is produced with certain selectivity and other by-products are
produced from terephthalic acid by the reaction of hydroxyl
radical. The selectivity depends on the experimental condi-
tions [13], [16], [17]. This is one of the reasons that hydroxyl
radical production with the disodium terephthalic acid solution
is estimated lower than that of an indigo carmine solution.
It is confirmed that hydrogen peroxide does not contributes
to indigo carmine decomposition using a reagent. Generally,
indigo carmine has a high reactivity with ozone, however,
ozone is almost not generated in this experiment because the
purity of argon gas is enough to high (99.99 vol.%) and indigo
carmine decomposition is independent with dissolved oxygen
in the solution. The indigo carmine decomposition is also
independent with by-product, such as hydrogen peroxide and
isatin-5-sulfonic acid, as discussed later. Hydrogen peroxide is
mainly produced by [26, eq. (4)]. Therefore, indigo carmine is
(7) mainly decomposed by hydroxyl radical. However, quantita-
tive estimations of the complex reaction system in the solution
should be studied in the future study.
B. Hydrogen Peroxide Production Process
As shown in Fig. 6, the hydrogen peroxide production is
4.3 × 10−6 mol without chloride ion addition. Assuming that
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TAKAHASHI et al.: ESTIMATION OF HYDROXYL RADICALS PRODUCED BY PULSED DISCHARGE INSIDE BUBBLE IN WATER
Fig. 8. Amount of indigo carmine decomposition as a function of
concentration of isatin-5-sulfonic acid.
all the hydrogen peroxides are produced by the recombination
reactions of hydroxyl radicals in the solution, the amount of
hydroxyl radicals contributes to produce hydrogen peroxide is
estimated to be 8.8×10−6 mol, which is much higher than the
amount of hydroxyl radicals contributes to react with indigo
carmine (1.5 × 10−6 mol). When all the hydroxyl radicals
consumed in reaction with high concentrated solutes, it is
considerable that hydrogen peroxide production is very low.
However, hydrogen peroxide production is slightly high value
and is held a constant value at 3.6 µmol when chloride ion
concentration is above 9 mM. Hydrogen peroxide is easily
dissolved into the solution owing to its very high Henry’s
law constant (8.3 × 105 M/atm at 298 K) [30]. These results
suggest that a large number of hydroxyl radicals produced
by discharges are consumed by the recombination reaction in
the gas phase inside bubble before the hydroxyl radicals are
dissolved into the solution.
C. Influence of By-Products on Evaluation
Hydroxyl radicals react not only with indigo carmine, but
also with by-products produced by the discharges. Indigo
carmine is decomposed into isatin-5-sulfonic acid by the
reaction with hydroxyl radical [27]. To clarify the influence
of isatin-5-sulfonic acid on indigo carmine decomposition,
the mixed solution of isatin-5-sulfonic acid and indigo carmine
is employed. Fig. 8 shows the amount of indigo carmine
decomposition as a function of concentration of isatin-5-
sulfonic acid in the mixed solution. The initial concentration
of indigo carmine is 1 mM. The output voltage and pulse
repetition rate are fixed at 5.8 kV and 80 pps, respectively.
Treatment time is 20 min. The amount of indigo carmine
decomposition is almost independent of the isatin-5-sulfonic
acid concentration. The decomposition of the indigo carmine
is initiated by the cleavage of carbon–carbon double bond
contained in the chromophore [27]. The carbon–carbon double
bond is one of the high electron density functional groups,
which have high reactivity with electrophilic reagents such as
hydroxyl radicals. The hydroxyl radicals primarily react with
the carbon–carbon double bond in indigo carmine. Therefore,
the reaction rate of hydroxyl radicals with indigo carmine is
much higher than that of the isatin-5-sulfonic acid.
5
Fig. 9. Amount of indigo carmine decomposition as a function of treatment
time.
Hydrogen peroxide produced by reaction (4) reacts with
hydroxyl radicals in the following reaction [28]:
·
OH + H2 O2 → H2 O + HO·2 k1 = 2.7 × 107 M−1 s−1 . (9)
However, the reaction rate constant is much lower than
that of the reaction of hydroxyl radical and indigo carmine,
as shown in reaction (3). The production of hydrogen peroxide
by the plasma is very low, and its concentration is much lower
than an indigo carmine concentration, as shown in Fig. 6.
Therefore, the amount of hydroxyl radical consumed in reac-
tion (9) is much lower than that of reaction (3).
When the by-products, such as hydrogen peroxide and
isatin-5-sulfonic acid, react with hydroxyl radical, the pro-
duction of by-product decreases the indigo carmine decom-
position, which causes errors on the estimation of hydroxyl
radicals. The amount of by-products increases with increasing
the treatment time. Fig. 9 shows the amount of indigo carmine
decomposition in indigo carmine solution as a function of
treatment time. The initial concentration of indigo carmine
is 5 mM. The amount of indigo carmine decomposition
increases linearly with increasing time. This result shows that
the hydroxyl radical is not consumed in the reaction with the
by-products produced by the discharges, and indigo carmine
decomposition is almost independent with the by-products
production with the treatment time up to 100 min.
Fig. 10 shows the amount of indigo carmine decomposition
as a function of pulse repetition rate. Initial concentration of
indigo carmine is 5 mM. The total number of pulses is fixed at
96 000 times in each pulse repetition rate. The bubble gener-
ated by injecting Ar gas is observed using a high-speed camera
(DegiMo, VCC-H1200) at a frame rate of 1000 frames/s. From
the flaming photographs, the bubble is generated at the tip of
glass tube and stays during approximately 40 ms. In the vicin-
ity of bubble surface, the concentration of hydrogen peroxide
increases and that of indigo carmine decreases with increasing
the pulse repetition rate [31], [32]. The concentration gradient
of hydroxyl radicals and hydrogen peroxide can suppress
reactions between indigo carmine and hydroxyl radicals by
increasing reactions (4) and (9). However, the amount of
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE
Fig. 10. Amount of indigo carmine decomposition as a function of pulse
repetition rate.
Fig. 11. Amount of indigo carmine decomposition and the energy yield of
dissolved hydroxyl radical in solution as a function of output voltage.
indigo carmine decomposition does not affected by the pulse
repetition rate. These results show that by-products derived
from indigo carmine decomposition and hydrogen peroxide
production have an insignificant effect on the reactions of
hydroxyl radical and indigo carmine during.
D. Energy Yield of Dissolved Hydroxyl Radical in Water
Since total input energy into the reactor is 307 J, and the
amount of hydroxyl radicals consumed in the reaction with
solutes is 1.3∼1.5 × 10−6 mol in Figs. 5 and 6, the energy
yield of dissolved hydroxyl radical in the solutions is estimated
to be 4∼5 × 10−9 mol/J in this paper. The energy yield for the
surface pulsed streamer discharge on the liquid with argon gas
is estimated to be 13∼27 × 10−9 mol/J, with disodium tereph-
thalate solution, from the results reported by Shiraki et al. [13],
which is of the same order of magnitude as our results. Fig. 11
shows the amount of indigo carmine decomposition and the
energy yield of dissolved hydroxyl radical in the solution as
a function of output voltage. The treatment time is 25 min,
and the total input energy is fixed at 307 J by controlling the
pulse repetition rate. The indigo carmine decomposition and
the energy yield increase with decreasing the output voltage.
The configuration of the discharge reactor, conductivity of the
solution, and pulsewidth and peak values of output voltage
has a significant effect on the energy yield. The investigation
of the effect of these parameters on the energy yield should
be issues for the future comparison and development of the
plasma treatment system.
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, the amount of hydroxyl radicals produced
by pulsed discharge inside bubble in water is estimated by
the decomposition of indigo carmine. Amount of the indigo
carmine decomposition increases with increasing the indigo
carmine, and is held a constant value at 1.5 × 10−6 mol,
when indigo carmine concentration is higher than 2.5 mM. The
amounts of hydroxyl radicals are estimated as 1.3 × 10−6 mol
by measuring hydrogen peroxide production in the potassium
solution, which corresponds to the amount of hydroxyl radicals
obtained from indigo carmine decomposition. The energy yield
of dissolved hydroxyl radical in water, which contributes to
react with solute in water, is estimated to be 4∼5×10−9 mol/J.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. Y. Muto, Iwate Univer-
sity, Morioka, Japan, and C. Yuan, Iwate University, for their
assistance with the experiments measuring the absorbance of
the indigo carmine solution and intensity of the fluorescence
of the terephthalic acid solution.
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7
Katsuyuki Takahashi was born in Miyagi, Japan,
in 1985. He received the B.Eng. degree from the
Sendai National College of Technology, Sendai,
Japan, in 2007, and the M.Eng. and Dr.Eng. degrees
from Iwate University, Morioka, Japan, in 2009 and
2011, respectively, all in electrical engineering.
From 2009 to 2015, he was with Shishido Elec-
trostatic Ltd., Morioka, as a Researcher. Since 2015,
he has been with Iwate University as an Assistant
Professor. His current research interests include elec-
trostatic discharge, environmental and agricultural
applications of plasma and high-voltage pulsed power technology.
Ryosuke Konno was born in Iwate, Japan, in 1993.
He received the B.Eng. degree in electrical engi-
neering and computer science from Iwate University,
Morioka, Japan, in 2016, where he is currently pur-
suing the master’s degree in electrical engineering
and computer science.
Naoya Satta was born in Shizuoka, Japan, in
1960. He received the B.Eng., M.Eng., and Dr.Eng.
degrees in sanitary engineering from Kyoto Uni-
versity, Kyoto, Japan, in 1985, 1987, and 1995,
respectively.
He was with the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto
University, as an Associate, in 1987. In 1998, he was
with the Department of Agricultural Engineering,
Iwate University, Morioka, Japan, as an Associate
Professor, where he was a Professor in 2008. His
current research interests include waste-water treat-
ment, such as the development of a new purification system for polluted solu-
tions using plasma discharge, and environmental behavior of toxic substances,
such as bromate and heavy metal.
Koichi Takaki (M’99–SM’13) received the B.Eng.,
M.Eng., and Dr.Eng. degrees in electrical engineer-
ing from Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan,
in 1986, 1988, and 1995, respectively.
In 1989 and 1993, he was a Research Associate
and a Lecturer with the Oita National College of
Technology, Oita, Japan. In 1996 and 2000, he was
a Research Associate and an Associate Professor
with the Department of Electrical and Electron-
ics Engineering, Iwate University, Morioka, Japan.
From 2000 to 2001, he was a Visiting Scientist with
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. He is currently a Professor
with Iwate University. He has research experiences of triggering a lightning
using water jet, ceramics joining using exploding foil, and exhaust gas
processing in atmospheric pressure such as reduction of NOx and PFC’s.
His current research interests include pulsed power technology, such as
pulsed ion technology (HiPIMS), agricultural applications such as plant
growth acceleration, fruition of mushroom, and keeping freshness of fruit
and vegetable, and environmental applications such as water purification, gas
remediation, and ozone production.