I-Corps: DC voltage driven cold plasma technology

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于电子安全的冷等离子体技术的广泛领域。具体应用范围相当广泛。一个潜在的商业应用领域涉及医疗器械、食品和药品的灭菌。这里开发的系统对制造环境中使用的人员和敏感设备来说是电气安全的。另一个潜在的应用涉及将冷等离子体技术用于医疗，但在相同的外科手术过程中，受其他医疗设备的严格电磁干扰要求。该项目将探索核心技术的商业潜力，并将为进一步的技术开发和可能的商业化路径提供信息。这个i-Corps项目进一步开发了一种新的冷等离子体技术，即直流电压驱动冷等离子体技术。最近的工作表明，当气流中的流光类型击穿序列由纯直流高压驱动时，可以在自振荡状态下产生冷等离子体。这种方法不同于传统的交流和脉冲直流，在传统的交流和脉冲直流中，击穿重复频率取决于放电驱动电压的频率。在这种创新的方法中，击穿的重复频率可以通过放电电极和周围环境的几何形状来控制。与传统的交流和脉冲直流系统相比，直流电压驱动冷等离子体技术具有巨大的基本优势，包括非常有效地缓解了不必要的故障和电晕，消除了电磁干扰，显著提高了击穿和电击安全性，以及系统的整体简单性，使多种商业应用成为可能。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project lies in the broad field of electrically-safe, cold plasma technology. The specific application are quite broad in scope. One potential commercial application area involves sterilization of medical instruments, food, and pharmaceutical products. The system developed here is electrically safe for personnel and sensitive equipment used in manufacturing environments. Another potential application involves utilization of the cold plasma technology for medical treatment subject to strict electromagnetic interference requirements of other medical equipment in same surgical procedure. This project will explore the commercial potential of the core technology and will inform further technical developments and possible commercialization paths.This I-Corps project further develops a novel cold plasma technology, namely DC voltage driven cold plasma technology. Recent work has demonstrated that cold plasmas can be generated in self-oscillatory regime, when sequence of streamer-type breakdowns in gas flow is driven by purely DC high voltage. This approach differs from the traditional AC and pulsed-DC, where breakdown repetition rate is governed by the frequency of discharge driving voltage. The repetition frequency of the breakdowns in this innovative approach can be controlled by the geometry of discharge electrodes and surroundings. DC voltage driven cold plasma technology has tremendous fundamental advantages over the traditional AC and pulsed-DC systems including very effective mitigation of unwanted breakdowns and corona, elimination of electromagnetic interference, significant improvement of breakdown and electric shock safety, and overall simplicity of the system and enables multiple commercial applications.