ozone generation

Interesting I would ensure that the outside of the tube is clean and no radiation escsapes. I would expect that a polished casing would be better so as not to absorb the uv & keep reflecting it - as long as it exists it will form uv. Painted surfaces could absorb the light many painted surfaces such as "dayglo" convert the uv to visible light and so kill it. Many white paints contain uv absorbers and so glow in uv - this you do not want.

Highly reflective inside surface will help return the UV that missed an O2 molecules to work.

The chamber temperature is very important. Heat destroys ozone. Keep it cool.

The production efficiency is reduced greatly when the concentration increase. Keep a good gas flow and you will produce more ozone even if the concentration is lower.

Using UV to make ozone is simple but not efficient. If you need to produce a lot of ozone, consider silent discharges using HV.

Don't bread the ozone. It is very bad for living things...

You don't say what concentration you are getting or what you are trying to achieve but you are not going to get much using the apparatus you have described. UV light is a poor source compared to others. A 10" pipe isn't going to get you much room to make the O3.

This worked for me 40 years ago in college.--> Use high voltage electrical discharge which you pass air (21% O2) or oxygen (O2) through to convert some of the O2 (a much higher concentration that a UV light can do) to O3. Not much to the apparatus. Take a glass labware condenser with ground glass ends on it and place a ground glass plug in the female end of the center tube. Secure the plug in with electrical tape, rubber bands or a metal clip so that it will not leak. Invert the condenser (male end up) and secure it with lab clamps at the neck of the female end and the section between the end of the jacket and the male end. Wrap the outside of the jacket between the inlet and outlet fittings with a couple wraps of aluminum foil.

make a zinc chloride/water solution (or any other good conductive salt) and fill the center tube of the condenser up to where the jacket meets the center tube on the upper portion of the condenser.

take a neon sign transformer or a oil burner transformer (caution the secondary will produce higher than 10KV when energized) and connect the secondary to a coat hanger wire immersed in the zinc chloride in the center tube of the condenser. Connect the other terminal to the aluminum wrapped around the outside of the condenser jacket. Best to use non resistive automobile spark plug wire to make these connections! Connect the primary of the transformer to an appropriate 120 power source. A variable one such as a variac works best.

Place all this in a fume hood (to keep people away from the high voltage) and connect a non conductive rubber hose to the bottom fitting on the condenser jacket. Connect the other end to your Air or O2 source. Connect another piece of hose to the other jacket fitting and run it to your O3 collection system.

Only operate with the Air/O2 flowing through the jacket!

With the variac set at the lowest setting turn the power source on. Gradually increase the voltage to the transformer/condenser until you get a blue spark between the outer surface of the center tube and the inner surface of the condenser jacket.

You are now generating O3!

Try looking up ozone in a Physical Chemistry text book/lab book or do a google search on it's manufacture.

Caution- This apparatus generates extremely high voltage and misused can cause fatal results if not done with extreme caution. You are forewarned!

Simplicity of execution and relative safety is why the UV lamp technique might be appropriate if he only need a little ozone. If he needs a lot, there are dozens of ozone generator manufacturers that have relatively safe equipments for sale.

Using UV to generate ozone is not terribly efficient.

Commercial ozone generators are little more than a spark generator with an air pump pushing air past the spark.

In a lot of the generators the air pump is little more than an aquariam air pump.

I've seen some spark generators that resembled a Jacob's Ladder and others that are just an ocelating circuit creating the high voltage spark.

Travis

I would like to add on to your question. I have used and seen many so called small scale O3 generators, but I have no means of measuring their claims of amount O3. What are the techniques available to measure O3.

By the way what do you mean by 14psi zero air?

First, I want to thank everyone for their input.

We run 14 pounds per square inch pressure of zero air (zero air = pure air = no hydrocarbons or moisture). We run normal air through a ZAG-6L zero air generator which has air output containing less than 1ppm of CH4, THC, CO, NOx, CO2, SO2. If we need higher concentrations of ozone we input oxygen.

For measuring the ozone we use an ozone detector which measures the concentration of ozone (we flow zero air and measure the level of ozone).

What happen is that changed the design of our chamber (had issue with leaks where a ring was welded to the threaded end of the tube - instead we increased the wall thickness of the tube and eliminated the weld) this changed the interior volume and surface finish AND reduced ozone levels; which we did not expect to see.

Now we are trying to determine the root cause; less volume and/or interior surface. We still electro polish the tube (chamber) but because we went from welded pipe to non-welded pipe the interior surface finished changed. WHAT A MESS!

Again I want to thank everyone for the input regarding ozone generation.

I have an additional question, can/ how long can ozone be stored in a inert chamber?

I have been told that conrona discharge type of ozone generation causes the level of ozone to go up and down (not a steady output level of ozone) we need a constant level in our gas detector.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Could we use a storage tank (small) to buffer this effect?

The ozone in the buffer tank would be used in less that 1 to 2 minutes; will the ozone last that long in the "inert" buffer tank?

Thank You for all your help.

Hi George,

Thanks for clarifying what zero air is.

I would appreciate if you can let me know what type of instrument you use to measure O3 level. Where can i buy it and how expensive is it?

My email address is sisiraa@gmail.com

I am keen to find out whether O3 generators we use really are capable of what the manufacturers claim them to be.

Thanks in advance

Again I want to thank everyone for the input regarding ozone generation.

I have an additional question, can/ how long can ozone be stored in a inert chamber?

I have been told that conrona discharge type of ozone generation causes the level of ozone to go up and down (not a steady output level of ozone) we need a constant level in our gas detector.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Could we use a storage tank (small) to buffer this effect?

The ozone in the buffer tank would be used in less that 1 to 2 minutes; will the ozone last that long in the "inert" buffer tank?

Thank You for all your help.