A fan-shaped plasma reactor for mixing enhancement in a closed chamber

This paper introduces a novel fan-shaped plasma reactor, which employs vortex-induced airflow by atmospheric dielectric barrier discharge to enhance mixing and the resulting distribution of the neighboring species of generated ozone. Through stereoscopic PIV and smoke flow visualizations it was demonstrated that mechanisms of suction, vortex creation and ejection of the fluid combine to form a vertical turbulent flow that yields a more controlled and uniform ozone distribution. The performance of the fan reactor was compared to that of a conventional comb reactor for three cross-sectional planes of a space volume simulating the decontamination environment. Results show that with the fan reactor, ozone starts spreading from the center of the plane, which makes the reactor itself responsible for most of the mixing and ozone's distribution pattern; whereas in the case of the comb reactor, mixing seems to be mostly dependent on the interaction between the reactor's characteristic flow and the boundaries of the space volume.