Soft-switching series-resonant converter to generate high output voltage for processing microbes

This paper presents analysis, design and practical consideration of a soft-switching series-resonant converter to generate high output voltage for processing microbes, which includes food sterilization, waste treatment, pollution control, and medical diagnostics and treatment. To achieve sterilization, the generated high DC output voltage is chopped into pulsed waveforms, in which their pulse-width varies from tens of ns to hundreds of μs, the period changes from 0.1 to 1 ms and the electric field intensity is from tens to hundreds of kV/cm. In this study, we further propose long pulses stacked with narrow pulses to prevent undesired air breakdown and reduce power consumption. The discussed converter is equipped with a resonant feature to generate narrow pulses. It can be operated at high frequencies and with PWM control; therefore its weight and size can be reduced significantly and its efficiency can be correspondingly improved.