Temperature runaway in a pulsed dielectric barrier discharge reactor

This paper reports on experimental measurements of the gas temperature in a dielectric barrier discharge reactor powered by a high voltage pulsed signal. It is shown that the thermal behavior of the reactor follows a first order model. However, an unexpected runaway phenomenon was observed at a frequency of 300 Hz. A sudden increase in the power source and consequently in reactor temperature which reaches 170 °C is observed. This behavior is discussed in terms of input power variation with temperature, possibly due to a resonance phenomenon.