Ozone production in a dielectric barrier discharge in air- and oxygen–methane mixtures. Experiment and modeling

Abstract The effect of methane on ozone production in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) was studied in mixtures of CH 4 with synthesized air and oxygen. It was found that addition of CH 4 significantly reduced the number density of ozone other conditions being equal. A DBD model was developed that takes into account the spatial structure of microdischarges and the fact that near the electrodes their filaments transform into surface discharges, where most of ozone is produced. In addition, in air and air–CH 4 mixtures the successive microdischarges were considered to occur not randomly in space, but at the same positions on the electrodes or moving with the flow occurring in the same volumes. The measured values of ozone number density downstream of the DBD were compared with simulation results, obtained with this novel DBD model. A good agreement between experiment and calculations was observed.