Electrical characteristics and influence of the air-gap size in a trielectrode plasma curtain at atmospheric pressure

R. SOSA; D. GRONDONA; A. MÁRQUEZ; G. ARTANA; H. KELLY

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS - D (APPLIED PHYSICS)

Institute of Physics IOP

Año: 2009 vol. 42 p. 1 - 7

0022-3727

A study of the electrical characteristics of the trielectrode plasma curtain (TPC) discharge ispresented. The influence of the air-gap size (for a fixed value of the inter-electrode distance)on the discharge behaviour has been exhaustively studied. The TPC discharge is based on thecombination of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) with a corona discharge (CD) in a threeelectrode system, and basically it consists of the ‘stretching’ of a pure DBD by the action of anegative CD generated between the active electrode of the dielectric barrier and a remote thirdelectrode. It was found that the general trend of the electrical characteristic curves (the averagedischarge current and the streamer frequency as functions of the AC and DC biasing voltages)was very similar for all the air-gap values considered. Our results indicate that thedevelopment of the TPC discharge requires two conditions: (a) the presence of a positive cycleof a well-developed DBD together with a CD where the remote electrode acts as the cathodeand (b) a voltage drop between the DBD electrode and the remote electrode high enough toobtain an average electric field in the gap that must exceed a minimum average electric fieldvalue in the streamer channel necessary for its propagation across the gap (≈6.3kVcm−1in our experimental conditions).