This is the setup for the carbon arc experiment.
The carbons are 3/16 diameter copper-coated air-arc welding electrodes.
The rods are positioned over a slab of white refractory, which will tolerate up to 3000 degrees F.
All arcs on this page were run at 20 amps, 30-40 volts without using an argon environment.
This is what I'm trying to do. The arc will be contained within the cylinder.
If I'm lucky, I can feed powdered chemicals down into the arc from above.
The arc is operating inside the white refractory tube.
I put the slab of refractory over the top hole, which caused the inside of the tube to promptly melt and flow!
In less than one minute the entire midsection of the tube had turned red hot.
Note the intense violet light reflecting off of the rod clamps.
This light is leaking out past the rods where they enter the cylinder.
The carbon plasma burns above the cylinder once it encounters atmospheric oxygen.
Another plasma plume.
The arc is stable while operating inside the tube. The carbons don't erode an appreciable amount.
I ran the arc inside the tube for about 10 minutes before I became tired and turned it off.
The same arc will only run about one minute outside of the cylinder. I think this is because,
outside the cylinder, the oxygen can reach the carbons, causing the erosion.
