Effect of voltage waveform on dielectric barrier discharge ozone production efficiency

¹ EDF R&D, EPI Dpt, Les Renardières, 77250 Moret-sur-Loing, France
² SUPELEC – E3S Département Electrotechnique et Systèmes d’Energie, 91192 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

^a e-mail: emmanuel.odic@supelec.fr

Received: 27 July 2011
Revised: 30 January 2012
Accepted: 1 February 2012
Published online: 1 March 2012

Abstract

Dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) are commonly used for gas effluent cleanup and ozone generation. For these applications, the energy efficiency of the discharge is a major concern. This paper reports on investigations carried out on the voltage shape applied to DBD reactor electrodes, aiming to evaluate a possible energy efficiency improvement for ozone production. Two DBD reactor geometries were used: pin-to-pin and cylinder-to-cylinder, both driven either by a bi-directional power supply (voltage rise rate 1 kV/μs) or by a pulsed power supply (voltage rise rate 1 kV/ns). Ozone formed in dry air was measured at the reactor outlet. Special attention was paid to discharge input power evaluation using different methods including instantaneous current-voltage product and transferred charge-applied voltage figures. The charge transferred by the discharges was also correlated to the ozone production. It is shown that, in the case of the DBD reactors under investigation, the applied voltage shape has no influence on the ozone production efficiency. For the considered voltage rise rate, the charge deposit on the dielectric inserted inside the discharge gap is the important factor (as opposed to the voltage shape) governing the efficiency of the discharge – it does this by tailoring the duration of the current peak into the tens of nanosecond range.