Evaluation of a solid state opening switch (SOS) diode pulser for use in a electrochemical reactor

A pulse generator, constructed by a group of Russian scientists, which uses a solid state opening switch (SOS), was characterized and tested. The diode acts similar to a step recovery diode but has voltage and current ratings that exceed the levels in US manufactured step-recovery diodes by orders of magnitude. To the authors' knowledge, there are no US manufactured diodes for the application described here. With the load chosen for this paper, the generator produces pulses of 100 kV amplitude and 10 ns half width, using a 600 V DC supply. The maximum pulse repetition rate is 100 Hz, limited by thermal considerations of the primary charging resistor. This limit could be easily overcome by using a switch-mode power supply to charge the primary capacitors. This pulser can be used to generate partial discharges in a chemical reactor in order to produce ozone for a variety of industrial uses such as sterilization, oxidation, NO/sub x/ or SO/sub x/ removal from exhaust gases, etc. The greatest advantage is the long lifetime of this all solid-state device.