PPPS-2013: Pulsed electrical discharge propagation along the surface of liquid dielectricts

Summary form only given. Chemical and physical processes accompanying the propagation of electrical discharges along liquid surfaces are important for wide range of applications from electrical switching to liquid disinfection. 1-microsecond, 10-20 kV, 800 ns flat-top pulses are applied in a pin-to-plane electrode geometry. Streamer discharge propagates along the surface of liquids such as glycerol and water with a wide range of conductivities from 3×10^-3 mS to 10³ mS. The gas above the liquid surface is at atmospheric pressure. Air, Ar, and Ar/O₂ mixtures are used in these experiments. We report the results of fast gated imaging and time-resolved optical and electrical measurements of the discharge. 10 nm bandpass filters are used with a fast PMT to investigate the formation of active species such as OH, O, etc. The novel aspect of this study is in combining a variety of time-resolved methods to study the dynamics of the streamer propagation along the surface of liquid dielectrics. In addition, the pulse parameters allow accurate determination of the amount of charge transferred by each streamer. We compare discharge parameters and streamer propagation at different voltages and for various dielectric properties of liquids.