A high-energy capacitor bank (2 × 1 µF/20 kV in a Blumlein circuit) was discharged over about 3 µs through a 7 mm electrode gap in water suspensions of different materials-TiO 2 powder, wood materials (sawdust, needles)-and methylhydroxyethylcellulose dissolved in water. The Mach number of the compressional wave produced by the expanding discharge channel achieved a value of about 0.5. The destruction of added materials was tested using various methods: turbidity and covering ability of the TiO 2 -white, acid hydrolysis of beech sawdust, microbiological processes of spruce needles and molecular weight measurements of the cellulose derivative. In the used power conditions the physical destruction of materials dispersed in water (degassing and decomposition of physically bonded particles) is a dominant effect caused mainly by the compressional wave that can affect material in the whole volume. The chemical destruction probably occurs just in the vicinity or inside the plasma channel due to the action of plasma particles or energetic radiation.
Passive films formed anodically on titanium (Ti) plates in 0.5 M sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ) were corroded in aqueous solutions of H 2 SO 4 in the dark and under illumination of a 250-W mercury (Hg) lamp. The corrosion depth was determined by calculating the thickness of the oxide layers from interference patterns of reflection spectra in the visible region. Corrosion was observed at pH ≤ 3, with the corrosion rate increasing exponentially with decreasing pH and achieving a maximum value at pH ~ 1. Photocorrosion generally was quicker than corrosion occurring in the dark in all cases (i.e., open-circuit, short-circuit, bias conditions) and increased under anodic polarization of the oxide electrode together with the photocurrent. Corrosion occurring in the dark decreased very weakly under anodic polarization. Long-term corrosion experiments indicated the initial corrosion rate for a thick anodic oxide was higher than the later rates, probably because of the different oxide quality within the cross section.
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