Power Supply for Micro-Sterilization System Using Pulsed Electric Field and Dielectrophoresis

Abstract

This paper presents a power supply for the micro-sterilization system; the power supply involves the use of a microdevice. The power supply circuit produces both pulse voltage and sinusoidal voltage. The pulse voltage is used for pulsed electric field (PEF) sterilization, and the sinusoidal voltage is needed for dielectrophoresis (DEP). MOSFETs are used in the PEF circuit, and operational amplifiers are used in the DEP circuit. A structure for the microdevice which can generate electric fields of 10∼20kV/cm is proposed. In addition, a low-inductance structure is designed for the microdevice since the inductance has a some effect on the rise time of the pulse voltage. Moreover, a high-speed gate drive circuit is also used in the PEF circuit along with a digital isolator. As a result, a pulse voltage with a pulse width of 70ns and a rise time of 9ns can be generated by the miocrodevice (10mm × 10mm × 200µm). Moreover the output sinusoidal voltage of the power supply can be set to 5V.