A comparative study of ozone generation using pulsed and continuous AC dielectric barrier discharges

This paper presents a comparative study of ozone generation under pulsed and continuous ac dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). An oxygen-fed DBD reactor with a narrow discharge gap of 0.4 mm was used in the experiments. DBD discharge modes under pulsed and continuous ac energisation were investigated and compared in this work. Negative impulses with the pulse length of 500 ns and repetition rate of 200 pps were employed to produce ozone at four different concentrations of 18.4 g/Nm³, 34.8 g/Nm³, 38.1 g/Nm³ and 52.5 g/Nm³, while in the case of ac energisation, sinusoidal voltage with the frequency of 25 kHz was applied to produce ozone at similar concentrations. The discharge power and ozone production efficiency at these ozone concentrations were obtained and compared for both energisation modes. It is shown that both pulsed and continuous ac dielectric barrier discharges have a filamentary mode and continuous ac energisation results in 18% increase in the efficiency as compared with pulsed energisation.