Ozone production in parallel multichannel dielectric barrier discharge from oxygen and air: the influence of gas pressure

This research aims to investigate the influence of gas pressure (0.1 Mpa–0.2 Mpa) on ozone generation in a parallel multichannel dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor with a narrow gap (0.2 mm). In addition to determining ozone concentration and ozone yield characteristics with gas pressure variation, this paper examines the possible reasons leading to the inconsistency with previous reported results. All the experimental results are plotted on the basis of specific input energy (SIE) in order to conduct the comparison within identical power density. By reviewing the experimental results, the possible cause leading to the inconsistency concerning gas pressure dependences of ozone generation was found using different comparison bases. Results show that ozone generation is slightly suppressed with an increase of gas pressure with an initial increase in SIE. The results of the ozone yield show that an increase of gas pressure would have a favorable effect on ozone production efficiency with an SIE larger than 400 J l −1 in oxygen while ozone yield reaches the maximum at 0.14 Mpa with an SIE larger than 150 J l −1 in air. Increasing gas pressure would lead to a higher critical SIE value at which ozone yield firstly decreases with an increase of SIE both in oxygen and air. The results of nitrogen oxide byproducts show that both NO x byproducts emission and the discharge poisoning effect are suppressed by increasing gas pressure in air plasmas.