microwave plasma

[CPL.Luke]

so.... I've been working on this science project for a while, it involves sticking bits of metal inside of a glass bottle, then placing the bottle inside a microwave.

 

 

the end result of this is that a ball of plasma forms inside of the bottle and hovers around the neck of the bottle.

 

after doing a fair amount of work on this project I'm kinda at a standstill as to why the plasma doesn't leave the bottle through the open neck.

 

I would attach some pictures however I don't have any server to host them on.

[EvoN1020v]

You have a limitation of upload pictures on SFN. I think around 1,200 KB.

[CPL.Luke]

hmm whenever I click on insert photo it asks me for a url

[Daecon]

Have you tried http://www.photobucket.com?

 

That's generally regarded as a good space to host image files.

[EverCurious]

Do you mind posting the specs of your experminet, and your process, i want to create your experiment at home. It also may be possible that the shape of the bottle of the angle placement is affecting the location of your "plasma" ball.

 

It seems much more sci-fi than reality, but then again, the frontier of science is the beginning of sci-fi.

[swansont]

so.... I've been working on this science project for a while' date=' it involves sticking bits of metal inside of a glass bottle, then placing the bottle inside a microwave.

 

 

the end result of this is that a ball of plasma forms inside of the bottle and hovers around the neck of the bottle.

 

after doing a fair amount of work on this project I'm kinda at a standstill as to why the plasma doesn't leave the bottle through the open neck.

 

I would attach some pictures however I don't have any server to host them on.[/quote']

 

Some semi-WAGs: Is the positioning of the bottle the same? It could be related to standing wave positions of the microwaves. It could also be that the plasma recombines outside the neck, so the edge isn't going to move past some point where this happens. Have you tried it with different bottle shapes and sizes?

[CPL.Luke]

we've done the experiment in lab "milk" bottles and in ibc root beer bottles, the results were essentially the same in terms of placement of the plasma.

 

Me and my partner are kindof on the tack that the plasma is being created by either inductive coupling or capacitive coupling, or a combination of the two, and that the neck of the bottle is such that because of the plasmas tendency to hold together (not entirely sure if this is true) the plasma essentially cannot "fit" through the neck.

 

 

right now were going to work on adjusting the neck of the bottles to be smaller and hopefully were going to find the relationship between the width of the neck and the ability of the plasma to "fit" through the neck.

 

as for position in the microwave,

 

I've conducted the experiment with the bottle on the edge of the turntable in the microwave and thats made the plasma stop working in some parts of the microwave oven.

 

 

as for replicating the experiment, I'm a bit hesitant to give out all the parameters as as far as I know Me and my partner are the first people to do these sorts of experiments, and we are kindof hoping for this to be somewhat scientificly useful (and get us into college).

 

oh yes, I do know how krankish that sounds.

 

 

does anybody have any information on plasma's tendency to congeal? in my literature research I haven't found any real information on this, although in my observations of it it does seam to hold together (to a limited extent)

 

 

also what is a wag?

[CanadaAotS]

have you ever tried the grape experiment? I wouldn't really condone it or any of these plasma experiments because it could blow up your microwave. lol

 

but what you do is you cut a grape almost all the way through so that its still attached by the skin. place it so that the two halves are open. When you turn on the microwave plasma jets shoot out of the connecting skin between the grapes.

 

I forget why it does this but it's so freakin cool lol

[swansont]

we've done the experiment in lab "milk" bottles and in ibc root beer bottles' date=' the results were essentially the same in terms of placement of the plasma.

 

Me and my partner are kindof on the tack that the plasma is being created by either inductive coupling or capacitive coupling, or a combination of the two, and that the neck of the bottle is such that because of the plasmas tendency to hold together (not entirely sure if this is true) the plasma essentially cannot "fit" through the neck.

 

 

right now were going to work on adjusting the neck of the bottles to be smaller and hopefully were going to find the relationship between the width of the neck and the ability of the plasma to "fit" through the neck.

 

as for position in the microwave,

 

I've conducted the experiment with the bottle on the edge of the turntable in the microwave and thats made the plasma stop working in some parts of the microwave oven.

 

 

as for replicating the experiment, I'm a bit hesitant to give out all the parameters as as far as I know Me and my partner are the first people to do these sorts of experiments, and we are kindof hoping for this to be somewhat scientificly useful (and get us into college).

 

oh yes, I do know how krankish that sounds.

 

 

does anybody have any information on plasma's tendency to congeal? in my literature research I haven't found any real information on this, although in my observations of it it does seam to hold together (to a limited extent)

 

 

also what is a wag?[/quote']

 

Scientific inquiry means publishing your results, so that others can replicate them

 

Hypothesis: I think that perhaps the barrier helps confine the plasma, so it's in a more stable configuration near the neck. It's hot, so it will tend to rise - is it perhaps sitting more on the inside part of the neck, like it can't get past? Try it with a container of similar volume that has no neck (like a beaker) and see what happens.

 

WAG = wild-ass-guess. I didn't/don't want you to think I was speaking from direct experience here. I haven't worked a lot with plasmas, but I do know people have used grapes to make them in microwaves.

[CPL.Luke]

scientific inquiry does require publishing results, but only after you have results to publish We are going to be attending a number of science fairs with this project, and if all goes well submit something for publishing.

 

and swansont you were right in assuming that the plasma was hovering inside of the bottle neck.

[bascule]

(Using my amazing Necromancer powers I revive this thread from its deathly slumber!)

 

Yeah, I did this... other people have done it waaaay better

 

[Rocket Man]

an aluminum spire with an artificial ground underneath an upturned fishbowl generallly gives a more cohesive ball of plasma. i think it forms a torus which holds itself together via magnetic effects.

search plasmoid.

[CPL.Luke]

you can get it to be quite stable using a glass bottle. (when the bottle is still right side up). let me dig up some pictures

[CPL.Luke]

 

 

 

good god this thread is old, but at the time It was working on te project I contacted a plasma physicist who said that the plasma could not be using internal magnetic fields to keep itself contained. At the time he suggested that it could have been some sort of burn front that we were viewing and not a contained plasma (a true pasma). however due to the respose to magnetic stimulus I am a bit dubious of this hypothesis, however its still possible that the metal had been vaporising and then ignited in that region.

 

My personal hypothesis is that the plasma got caught in that region due to some sort of pressure difference between the top and bottom of the plasma. However I eventually abandoned the project due to an inability to test for any of the possibilities.