Ozone Production With Plasma Discharge: Comparisons Between Activated Air and Activated Fuel/Air Mixture

This study focused on the comparative analysis about the production of ozone and active radicals in presence of nanopulsed plasma discharge on air and on fuel/air mixture to investigate its effect on combustion enhancement. This analysis is based on numerical modeling of air and methane/air plasma discharge with different repetition rates (100 Hz, 1000 Hz and 10000 Hz). To this purpose, a two-step approach has been proposed based on two different chemistry solvers: a 0-D plasma chemistry solver (ZDPlasKin toolbox) and a combustion chemistry solver (CHEMKIN software suite). Consequently, a comprehensive chemical kinetic scheme was generated including both plasma excitation reactions and gas phase reactions. Validation of air and methane/air mechanisms was performed with experimental data. Kinetic models of both air and methane/air provides good fitting with experimental data of O atom generation and decay process. ZDPlasKin results were introduced in CHEMKIN in order to analyze combustion enhancement. It was found that the concentrations of O3 and O atom in air are higher than the methane/air activation. However, during the air activation peak concentration of ozone was significantly increased with repetition rates and maximum was observed at 10000 Hz. Furthermore, ignition timings and flammability limits were also improved with air and methane/air activation but the impact of methane/air activation was comparatively higher.