Xenon iodide exciplex lamp as an efficient source for the UV surface cleaning and water decontamination

Abstract

Discharges in mixtures containing xenon and iodine are interesting because the exciplex XeI*emits in germicidal spectral region (λ max = 253 nm). In this paper the optimization of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) excited lamp operated with a Xe/I 2 mixture is reported. Approximately 76% of the excilamp output was due to the B-X transition of XeI*exciplex at 253 nm. Short voltage rising and falling time under pulse excitation is more important for the efficiency enhancement than the pulse duration. The average radiation power of 10.3 mW/cm 2 was measured under pulsed excitation at a frequency of 80 kHz. An efficiency improvement from about 3% for AC to 5-9% for square pulse excitation was obtained. A good cleaning effect of glass surface and sterilization action was achieved with the DBD-driven XeI*exciplex lamp. The contribution of an atomic iodine emission in the range of 178-207 nm has been confirmed. Germ reduction experiments with the XeI*excilamp have been carried out in a water flow reactor. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.