The Influence of Inert Gas Addition on Electric Breakdown Utilizing Dielectric Barrier Discharge in Ozone Generation in Air

Abstract

This article investigates the effect of inert gas addition He, Ar, Kr, and Xe on gas breakdown voltage within a dielectric barrier discharge reactor with air feed gas. The density-normalized effective ionization coefficients are calculated for inert gas/air mixtures; the critical reduced field is then obtained where the electron ionization exactly balances the attachment. Adding inert gases would lead to the decreasing critical reduced field strength due to the enhancement of effective ionization coefficient. In addition, inert gas additions have shown to reduce the breakdown voltage. Moreover the calculated breakdown voltage values and the experimental data are plotted for the sake of comparison and results show that calculated results are in agreement with the experimental values. Parametric studies offer substantial insight in plasma physics, as well as in ozone generation applications.

Keywords:

• Ozone
• Ozone Generation
• Dielectric Barrier Discharge
• Breakdown Voltage
• Inert Gas