Effects of discharge pulsing on the cleaning of surfaces using a dielectric barrier discharge at atmospheric pressure

A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) powered by pulsed sinusoidal voltage at atmospheric pressure was used for the removal of thin oil films. Using pulsed power with suitably chosen pulse and pause duration, the oil removal rate, obtained here by the film thickness differences and the total local treatment time, can be significantly enhanced when compared to the continuous excitation. At pulse lengths of 120 μs and pause lengths of 1200 μs, the removal rate is approximately 10.4 nm/s. That is approximately twice the removal rate obtained without pauses. The removal rate of thin oil films sensitively depends on the pulse length in the range from 100 to 200 μs and the pause length shorter than 480 μs. We propose a simple equation, based on a model containing reactions with long-lived reactive species during the pause period, to describe the effect of pulse and pause length in the removal rate of thin oil films.