Ozone generation in a kHz-pulsed He-O2 capillary dielectric barrier discharge operated in ambient air

Abstract

The generation of reactive oxygen species using nonequilibrium atmospheric pressure plasma jet devices has been a subject of recent interest due to their ability to generate localized concentrations from a compact source. To date, such studies with plasma jet devices have primarily utilized radio-frequency excitation. In this work, we characterize ozone generation in a kHz-pulsed capillary dielectric barrier discharge configuration comprised of an active discharge plasma jet operating in ambient air that is externally grounded. The plasma jet flow gas was composed of helium with an admixture of up to 5% oxygen. A unipolar voltage pulse train with a 20 ns pulse risetime was used to drive the discharge at repetition rates between 2–25 kHz. Using UVLED absorption spectroscopy centered at 255 nm near the Hartley-band absorption peak, ozone was detected over 1 cm from the capillary axis. We observed roughly linear scaling of ozone production with increasing pulse repetition rate up to a “turnover frequency,” beyond which ozone production steadily dropped and discharge current and 777 nm O(5P→5S°) emission sharply increased. The turnover in ozone production occurred at higher pulse frequencies with increasing flow rate and decreasing applied voltage with a common energy density of 55 mJ/cm3 supplied to the discharge. The limiting energy density and peak ozone production both increased with increasing O2 admixture. The power dissipated in the discharge was obtained from circuit current and voltage measurements using a modified parallel plate dielectric barrier discharge circuit model and the volume-averaged ozone concentration was derived from a 2D ozone absorption measurement. From these measurements, the volume-averaged efficiency of ozone production was calculated to be 23 g/kWh at conditions for peak ozone production of 41 mg/h at 11 kV applied voltage, 3% O2, 2 l/min flow rate, and 13 kHz pulse repetition rate, with 1.79 W dissipated in the discharge.