Research in ozone generation technology continues to provide new approaches to improving the cost and effectiveness of ozone for a variety of applications. The two technologies that were discussed at the recent International Ozone Association conference pointed out the promise of these new approaches. One approach involved electrochemical formation of ozone using artificial diamond electrodes and the other employed a new Xe Excimer UV lamp. In this post I will discuss the latter development and in a future post will cover the electrochemical approach.
UV Solutions has developed a new extremely efficient light source converts more than 50% of input energy to 172 nm light. By exposing air or oxygen to the radiation from this lamp, high concentration ozone can be produced with high energy efficiency. This is because one photon of 172 nm UV light produces two molecules of ozone. As with other gas phase ozone generation methods, results depend on temperature, pressure and humidity. Nonetheless at 300 degrees K, the lamp was able to produce 40 wt% ozone at 50 g/Kwh. This concentration is not possible to produce at that energy level by any conventional technology employed today.
It is expected at concentrations currently employed for water treatment (8-10%), that ozone made using this UV process will reduce energy consumption by 45%. Since energy is one of the major costs associated with the production of ozone, this is a substantial improvement over current technology employing the corona discharge method. Total cost for UV produced ozone using this method is expected to cost $0.60/lb versus $0.80/lb for the conventional method.
This technology is only at the laboratory scale, but the potential of the technology is great if the process can be scaled up to larger sizes comparable to those used in ozone water treatment applications.