Abstract
In this research, numerical simulation of oxygen plasma produced by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is made as a basic research for the application of bioprocesses such as sterilization. Numerical simulation is based on an appropriate modeling of microdischarges including 9 kinds of species and 54 chemical reactions. Behavior of the oxygen plasma is analyzed by finite difference method in two-dimensional computational region. The detailed characteristics of filamentous discharge formed between parallel dielectric surfaces which cover the electrodes are investigated. The qualitative tendency of the discharge formation process agrees with the previous experimental observation. Ozone production efficiency (OPE) is obtained and compared with experimental results. Dependency of reduced electric field E/n on OPE is investigated by comparing the numerical results with previous experimental results by other researcher, where E/n is the ratio of electric field EE to number density n of neutral molecule in the gas. It is confirmed that the present numerical simulation has practically enough accuracy for the evaluation of the OPE to optimize the oxygen plasma sterilization devices.
