Development of a 40-kV Pulse Modulator and Experiment With Industrial Odor Removal Using Nonthermal Plasma

Plasma technology is attracting increasing attention for environmental applications, such as odor removal, waste recycling, and waste gas treatment. The power supply to generate plasma (plasma source) for such various plasma applications is also being developed in different forms to obtain high-quality plasma effects and efficiency. This article presents the development of a 40-kV pulse power supply using an inductive energy storage-based pulse modulator (IES_PM). The proposed pulse power supply is based on the flyback circuit to store the energy in the inductor (flyback transformer). Since it operates as a current source using inductive energy storage, a high-voltage ratio of output and input can be achieved. Various specifications can be obtained in combination with a switch, transformer, and capacitor. The PSpice program was used to perform simulations to validate the proposed design, and implementation with the rated operation was confirmed. Finally, an odor removal experiment was performed using plasma generated with the developed 40-kV pulse power supply.