Ozone emission and electrical characteristics of ionizers with different electrode materials, numbers, and diameters

Abstract

We investigated ozone emission characteristics of ionizers with different materials, edge numbers, and diameters of the high voltage electrode of an ionizer to understand low ozone emission performance of a carbon brush ionizer which was successfully developed in our previous researches on a two-stage ESP for cleaning indoor air and exhaust gases from industries. Corona discharge current and ozone concentration from the ionizer with different high voltage electrodes were measured by a digital voltage and current meter and an ozone monitor, while varying applied voltages to ionizers from 0 to −12 kV at a constant air flow rate of 100 L/min. The corona currents were changed from 0 to several hundred μA depending on electrode material and geometry while ozone concentrations were changed 0 to several hundred ppb. The experimental results showed that materials did not affect voltage versus corona current significantly and also ozone emission from ionizers in this study. At the same applied voltage, corona currents were lower and ozone emissions were also lower with increase of edge numbers, and finally corona currents increased but ozone decreased as a diameter of a high voltage electrode became thinner. From the experiments, we concluded that the low ozone performance of a carbon brush ionizer was due to the effect of thin and multi electrodes.