Temperature profiles in filamentary dielectric barrier discharges at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

Physico-chemical properties of atmospheric pressure filamentary dielectric barrier discharges (f-DBD) depend on coupled electrical characteristics and thermal profiles. In this paper, a method for studying thermal and electrical effects is developed. Therefore, thermal profiles of f-DBD are studied for well-defined electrical characteristics of quasi-identical filaments with controlled distribution in time and space. The temperatures of gas, dielectric surface and plasma depend on the surface density and on the temporal frequency of filaments, defining the input power, and can be tuned by controlling heat transfers. Different methods to control these temperatures are depicted. Moreover, heat transfer through conduction and convection from dielectric surface is shown to be the dominant heating mechanism of the flowing gas in the reactor. Finally, experimental results show that the local temperature gradient around each filament can be controlled by the frequency of the applied voltage. Actually, the temperature difference between the filament and the surrounding gas is constant below 10 kHz but increases linearly with the frequency above 10 kHz. At high frequency, the time between two successive filaments occurring at the same position becomes smaller than the relaxation time constant of thermal exchanges (∼0.1 ms). Hence, this rise in local temperature can be attributed to time-limited heat transfers from the filament axis.