Solid-State Bipolar Pulsed Power Modulator for High-Efficiency Production of Plasma Activated Water

Abstract

This article presents a bipolar pulse power modulator for high-efficiency production of plasma activated water (PAW). The proposed modulator is designed based on a power cell structure that has structural advantages of a power loop and control loop. Full-bridge based power cells are designed and 12 cells are connected in series. A power loop transformer is designed to deliver isolated power to all cells simultaneously without additional charging switches. A bipolar control loop structure is designed to supply the isolated power and signals required for 48 discharge switches through a pair of high voltage cables. The specifications of the modulator based on the proposed design produces a maximum output voltage and current of 10 kV/100 A, a pulsed width ranging from 0.6 to 10 μs, a maximum repetition rate of 3 kHz, and an average power of 2 kW. The bipolar modulator is tested under resistive and plasma reactor load conditions. In addition, a comparative experiment on the production efficiency of PAW between the proposed modulator and the existing modulator is performed under the same output power condition. Finally, the nitrate generation efficiency is 3.03 g/kWh, which is 1.7 times higher than the existing modulator. © 1982-2012 IEEE.