Experiments on gliding discharge configuration for plasma assisted combustion

Non-thermal plasmas are of interest to be used to assist combustion processes. We report on experiments performed with a gliding discharge in air where highspeed video camera has been used to capture the evolution of the discharge channel to study the transition from a thermal to a non-thermal discharge. The purpose is to evaluate the gliding discharge in terms of efficiency of transmitting electric energy from the power supply to the discharge channel. The matching of the inner impedance of the power supply with the load, that is the discharge channel, seems not be important. In general, a higher flow rate of the externally forced airflow gave better performance. The main reason is that the energy is transferred faster to the discharge channel, resulting in less energy wasted in the internal impedance of the power circuit and a possibility of a higher pulse-repetition frequency.