Energy efficiency improvement of electrical sterilization using oscillatory waveforms from a RLC discharging circuit

This paper describes effects of pulsed HV waveforms on biological cell inactivation. A simple RLC circuit with various inductance values was employed to investigate the waveform effects on the electrical sterilization of Escherichia Coli. It has been found that the minimum value of cell survivability can be realized by choosing an appropriate inductance value, even when the initial energy stored in a capacitor is constant. In order to realize higher energy efficiency than a conventional RC discharging network, circuit parameters should be determined so that amplitude and width of each pulse becomes larger than the critical values 15 kV/cm and 50 /spl mu/s, respectively.