Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 17
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2013-40556-8

Regular Article

An analysis of the effect of inert gases on ozone generation using dielectric barrier discharge in oxygen

School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, P.R. China

^a e-mail: weilinsheng@ncu.edu.cn

Received: 7 September 2013
Received in final form: 25 October 2013
Published online: 23 January 2014

Abstract

This paper studies the influence of inert gases He, Ar, Kr and Xe on ozone generation in a dielectric barrier reactor fed by oxygen feed gas. Results show that inert gas additions would lead to lower applied voltage, discharge power and reduced field. The electron energy distribution function shifts to the right though inert gas addition would lead to a lower reduced field with He, Ar and Kr addition, but it shifts to the left with Xe addition. The effective electron density decreases with inert gas content. With respect to Ar/O₂, Kr/O₂ and Xe/O₂ mixture, conversion ratio of oxygen into ozone and ozone yield would increase with increasing Ar, Kr or Xe content, the growth rates follow the order of Xe > Kr > Ar. Such behaviors can be ascribed to the fact that Ar*, Kr* and Xe* could provide another effective pathway to produce oxygen atom through penning dissociation of O₂ and metastable species due to their relatively low excitation threshold and considerable rate coefficients.