I-Corps: DC voltage driven cold plasma technology

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于电气安全、冷等离子体技术的广泛领域。具体的应用范围相当广泛。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。这里开发的系统对生产环境中使用的人员和敏感设备是电气安全的。另一个潜在的应用涉及将冷等离子体技术用于在同一外科手术中受到其他医疗设备严格电磁干扰要求的医疗治疗。该项目将探索核心技术的商业潜力，并将为进一步的技术发展和可能的商业化途径提供信息。I-Corps项目进一步发展了一种新型冷等离子体技术，即直流电压驱动冷等离子体技术。最近的研究表明，当纯直流高压驱动气流中的流线型击穿序列时，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，其中击穿重复率由放电驱动电压的频率控制。在这种创新的方法中，击穿的重复频率可以通过放电电极的几何形状和周围环境来控制。与传统的交流和脉冲直流系统相比，直流电压驱动的冷等离子体技术具有巨大的根本优势，包括非常有效地减少不必要的击穿和电晕，消除电磁干扰，显着提高击穿和触电安全性，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.