KR100545564B1 - A Tube type plasma anion generator - Google Patents

Abstract

The tube type plasma anion generator of the present invention includes an operation unit for generating an operation intensity signal by determining an operation intensity of the anion generator according to a user's selection or based on data from a sensor; A power supply and a control unit generating a timing control signal according to the operation intensity signal inputted from the operation unit to control the operation intensity of the negative ion generator by adjusting an ON / OFF cycle of the negative ion generator; A high voltage applying unit applying a high voltage to the negative ion generating electrode unit under the control of the power source and the control unit; And forming a first electrode on an inner surface of the insulating dielectric tube having a circular or polygonal shape, and forming a second electrode having a larger electrode formation area than the first electrode on the outer surface of the dielectric tube to apply a high voltage to the electrode. And an anion generating electrode part configured to generate an anion through an atmospheric pressure plasma generated inside the dielectric tube in which the first electrode is formed. According to the present invention, the negative ion generator can smoothly generate negative ions even in a place where the air flow is strong, the generation of ozone and NO _X is low, and the user can freely control the amount of negative ions generated.

Anion generator, creepage discharge, corona discharge, electrode, ozone, atmospheric plasma

Description

A tube type plasma anion generator

1 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of an anion generator of the present invention.

2 is a detailed view of the anion generating electrode portion according to the present invention.

Figure 3 illustrates the principle that negative ions are generated in the negative electrode generating electrode portion according to the present invention and diffused to the outside.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram schematically illustrating the configuration of the power source and the controller shown in FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 illustrates a timing control signal generated by a CPU of an operation unit or a timer of a control unit to control the operation intensity of the negative ion generator.

6 is a three-dimensional view showing the state in which the high voltage applying unit and the negative ion generating electrode unit are integrally assembled.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

10 ..... Control panel 20 ..... Power and control

30 ..... High voltage part 40 ..... Anion generating electrode part

410 .... Dielectric 420. First electrode

430 .... second electrode

The present invention relates to an anion generating device, and more particularly, to reduce the generation of NO _X and ozone and the user can easily control the amount of anion generated, in particular anion that can stably generate anion even in a strong air flow It relates to a generating device.

Recently, in homes, living rooms, indoors of cars, restaurants, hospitals, and offices where many people gather, the dust and odors are removed and recycled into clean air to create a pleasant atmosphere. Many negative ion generators are used, and the amount of their use is gradually increasing.

Such ozone and anion generators generally use a method of generating an atmospheric pressure plasma to generate anions such as OH ^- or O ₂ ^-in the air. Atmospheric pressure plasma is a low-temperature plasma generated at atmospheric pressure (i.e., 1 atm). Corona is a phenomenon in which electrons in one electrode jump over the other electrode with blue flashes by applying a high voltage between two metal electrodes in the atmosphere. Discharge is a representative example. When atmospheric pressure plasma is generated, anion such as OH- or O2- is generated because electrons collide with the air molecules and are actively ionized. The anion then rapidly collides with the air molecules to generate ozone with bactericidal action.

However, the conventional negative ion generator using such corona discharge has various problems.

First, in the case of corona discharge, not only anion is generated but also nitrogen oxides (NO _X ) are also generated because it is known that the activated oxygen is combined with nitrogen in the air as the ozone generated by the corona discharge is decomposed. . The generated NO _x adheres to the metal electrode surface of the negative ion generator and serves to corrode the metal electrode. Therefore, if the metal electrode of the negative ion generator is not periodically cleaned, the efficiency of generating negative ions gradually decreases.

Second, in the case of the conventional corona discharge, there is a problem that the ozone (O ₃ ) is generated too much. Ozone is a colorless gas with an irritating odor, which has a strong oxidizing power, so it has a strong sterilizing power to remove bacteria and viruses, and to remove tobacco smoke and other odors. However, too much ozone adversely affects the skin and respiratory system, and it may cause discomfort to people due to the unique smell of ozone. Therefore, the amount of ozone in the room needs to be properly maintained. However, in the case of conventional negative ion generators using corona discharge, electrons collide directly with air to generate a large amount of ozone because electricity is discharged through the air.

To overcome this problem, a method of using creepage discharge, another example of atmospheric pressure plasma, has been developed. Surface discharge is a discharge generated along the surface of an object. Usually, electrodes are provided on both surfaces of the dielectric and high voltage is applied to cause the discharge on the dielectric surface. When negative ions are generated using such creeping discharges, electric field distribution occurs only near the electrodes where discharge occurs, and thus the amount of ozone generated is smaller than when negative ions are generated by corona discharge. As a result, ozone is decomposed. The amount of NO _X generated is also reduced.

However, there is a problem in the negative ion generation method by the above-described surface discharge. This problem is a problem that commonly occurs in the corona discharge method as well as the creeping discharge method described above. In other words, atmospheric pressure plasma including corona discharge or creepage discharge does not usually occur in a place where the flow of air is strong. Typically, anion generators are often used in conjunction with other devices, such as air cleaners, rather than being used alone. The air cleaner blows the air strongly to circulate the indoor air. In this case, since the air flow direction and the discharge direction are perpendicular to each other, the air cleaner is disturbed (resistance) to the flow of ionized air, and thus the discharge efficiency is low. The generation efficiency is low, causing problems with discharge overload and overheating, which shortens the life of the device.

In addition, the conventional negative ion generator has not been configured so that the user can adjust the amount of negative ions generated as needed. Therefore, the operation such as generating a large number of negative ions at the first operation and then reducing the amount of generation was not possible, and the user merely turned on / off the negative ion generator.

The present invention is to overcome the problems of the conventional negative ion generator as described above.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an effective negative ion generator which stably generates negative ions even in a place where air flow is strong, such as inside an air purifier.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide an anion generator which does not require periodic cleaning of the electrode by preventing NO _x from occurring during discharge.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide an anion generator in which a user can easily adjust the amount of anion generated.

In addition, an object of the present invention is to provide an anion generator that can generate an appropriate amount of ozone to maintain a comfortable indoor environment.

In order to achieve the above object, an operation unit for generating an operation intensity signal by determining the operation intensity of the negative ion generator through jumper switching according to the user's selection or based on data from the sensor; A power supply and a control unit generating a timing control signal according to the operation intensity signal inputted from the operation unit to control the operation intensity of the negative ion generator by adjusting an ON / OFF cycle of the negative ion generator; A first electrode having a predetermined length in a shape corresponding to the inner surface of the insulating dielectric tube having a circular or polygonal shape, and opposed to the first electrode with the dielectric tube interposed therebetween and having an electrode on the outer surface of the dielectric tube than the first electrode. And a high voltage applying unit configured to apply a high voltage to the anion generating electrode unit under the control of the power source and the control unit.

Hereinafter, a tube type plasma anion generator of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of an anion generator of the present invention. As shown, the negative ion generator of the present invention is composed of the operation unit 10, the power supply and control unit 20, the high voltage applying unit 30 and the negative ion generating electrode portion 40.

The operation unit 10 is for the user to turn on / off the negative ion generator manually or by the sensor using the operation button on the keypad or to adjust the strength, medium, and weak. As shown in FIG. 1, the operation unit 10 generates a keypad for allowing a user to directly select an operation of the negative ion generator, a sensor for detecting an air condition in the room, and a signal to be transmitted to the power source and the control unit 20. It includes a CPU for it. When the user selects one of the strong, medium, and weak values through the keypad, the CPU generates an operation intensity signal or a timing control signal such as strong, medium, or weak, and transmits it to the power source and the controller 20. This will be described later in more detail. On the other hand, when the user presses the 'auto' button, for example, the sensor detects the air condition in the room and transmits the data to the CPU as a result. It determines which of the medicines is to be transmitted, and transmits an operation strength signal or a timing control signal to the power supply and the control unit 20. The sensor may be a dust sensor for detecting the amount of dust in the room, a gas sensor for detecting smoke, or a VOC sensor for detecting volatile organic compounds such as toluene.

The power supply and control unit 20 supplies power to the negative ion generator, and generates a control signal according to a signal input from the CPU of the operation unit 10 and transmits the control signal to the high voltage applying unit 30 to adjust the amount of negative ions generated. Do it. This will be described later in more detail.

The high voltage application unit 30 is a circuit incorporating a high voltage transformer or the like, and generates a high voltage of 0.5 kV to 15 kV applied to the electrode of the negative ion generator. The negative ion generating electrode portion 40 is configured to provide an anion by generating an atmospheric pressure plasma by installing an electrode on an inner surface and an outer surface of a tubular dielectric made of ceramic or the like and applying a high voltage. At this time, the high voltage applying unit 30 and the negative ion generating electrode portion 40 can be assembled together integrally as shown in FIG.

First, the anion generating electrode portion 40 used in the present invention will be described in detail.

2 is an embodiment of the anion generating electrode portion 40 of the present invention. As shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, the anion generating electrode portion 40 includes a first electrode 420 around an inner diameter of the cylindrical dielectric 410, and an outer diameter of the cylindrical dielectric 410. The second electrode 430 is provided around the periphery. Preferably, the dielectric 410 preferably has a thickness of about 0.1 mm to 5 mm, and includes a material such as ceramic, glass, quartz, pyrex, or polyamide, polyacetyl, polycarbonate, polyester, polyphenylene. It is composed of a material with excellent insulation, hardness and heat resistance, like engineering plastics such as oxides. In addition, the electrode used in the present invention may be used a material having excellent electrical conductivity such as gold, silver, copper or platinum, or molybdenum, magnesium, tungsten, or the like, alone or in combination with other materials. The electrodes formed on the surface of the dielectric 410 may have a line width of 0.1 mm to 50 mm and a line spacing of about 0.1 mm to 100 mm.

In addition, although not shown in the drawing, after forming the electrode pattern on the dielectric, the amount of ozone is greatly reduced, and various problems caused by ozone generation, in particular, anion generation due to corrosion and oxidation of the electrode, NOx adhesion, etc. In order to prevent deterioration of efficiency and to prevent short circuit of the electrode and to improve operational stability, resins having high heat resistance, high hardness, high voltage resistance, moisture resistance, and ozone resistance (for example, glass, silicon, urethane, etc.) alone or in combination And need to be coated. For example, the first coating layer may be formed of glass on the electrode, and then the second coating layer may be formed of urethane thereon. In addition, the resin used to form the coating layer may be selected according to the type of dielectric and the shape of the electrode pattern. In addition, it is also possible to select and coat a resin having appropriate properties depending on how the hardness characteristics of the surface of the coating layer are to be made (ie, whether the surface of the coating layer is to be softened or hardened).

In this type of anion generating electrode unit 40, when a low voltage (LV) is applied to the first electrode 420 and a high voltage (HV) is applied to the second electrode 430, a cylindrical dielectric Atmospheric pressure plasma, more specifically creepage discharge, occurs in the inner diameter region. At this time, the application of HV and LV can be changed depending on the shape of the electrode, the configuration of the high voltage applying unit, or whether the electrode and the high voltage applying unit are integrated. When creeping discharge occurs, electrons emitted from the electrode collide with the air inside the cylindrical dielectric 410 at high speed to ionize. When negative ions are generated in this manner, the electric field distribution occurs only in the vicinity of the electrode where discharge occurs, so that the amount of ozone is reduced, and thus, the amount of NO _x generated when ozone is decomposed is extremely small.

According to an embodiment, as shown in FIG. 2 (c), the electrode may surround only a part of the dielectric without surrounding the entire inner and outer diameters of the dielectric. However, in order to generate atmospheric pressure plasma in the tube, the electrode formed at the outer diameter must have an inner diameter. It should have a larger area than the electrodes formed on it. On the other hand, in the present embodiment, the cross-sectional shape of the dielectric 410 is not necessarily circular, and may have a polygonal shape such as a triangle or a quadrangle as shown in FIGS. 2 (d) and (e).

As such, when the dielectric is formed in a tubular shape and an atmospheric pressure plasma is generated inside the tubular dielectric, the anion is generated more stably than the conventional method in which the electrode where the discharge occurs is exposed outside. do. Therefore, the negative ion generator according to the present invention can operate smoothly even inside the air cleaner is strong blowing.

Figure 3 shows the appearance of negative ions generated in the tubular dielectric of the present application. Fig. 3 (a) is a case where both ends of the tubular dielectric are open. In this case, negative ions generated inside the dielectric diffuse out of the dielectric through the natural air flow through the dielectric and diffuse into the air. 3 (b) shows one end of the tubular dielectric sealed. As shown, instead of closing one end, a small opening was formed in the top of the sealed side of the dielectric tube. This type of tubular dielectric is in direct contact with the blower and can be used even where the flow of air is too large. Positioning the sealed end of the dielectric tube toward the blower causes a strong flow of air from the blower to pass through the opening formed in the top of the dielectric tube. Then, based on Bernoulli's principle, negative ions formed inside the dielectric tube diffuse out through the opening into the air.

Now, a method of controlling the operating strength of the negative ion generator in the power supply and the control unit 20 will be described. 4 is a block diagram exemplarily illustrating a configuration of the power supply and the control unit 20. As can be seen from the block diagram, the power source and the controller 20 can select two control modes. That is, the case where J6 is opened and J5 is shorted by a jumper (JUMPER) on the right side of the block diagram is a case where the power source and the control unit 20 directly generate a control signal according to the operation intensity signal input from the operation unit 10. . When the CPU of the operation unit 10 generates an operation intensity signal and transmits the signal to the power source and the control unit 20 according to a user's selection or based on data from the sensor, the timer of the power source and the control unit 20 is inputted. According to the intensity signal, an appropriate timing control signal is generated and transmitted to the high voltage applying unit 30 to control the operation intensity of the negative ion generator. The timing control signal is a signal for maintaining the ON TIME of the negative ion generator for a predetermined time, for example, 1 ms, and adjusting the intensity by varying the OFF TIME. 5 exemplarily illustrates the timing control signal. When the user selects the strength of the operation through the operation unit 10 as weak, the timer embedded in the power supply and the control unit 20 is shown in FIG. 5 (a), for example, ON TIME 1 ㎳, OFF TIME. A timing control signal of 5 ms is generated. The anion generator then operates for 1 ms and stops for 5 ms. In addition, when the user selects the strength of the operation through the operation unit 10 as strong, the timer built in the power supply and the control unit 20 is ON TIME 1 ㎳, OFF TIME 0.1 도시 as shown in FIG. Generates a timing control signal. The negative ion generator then operates for 1 ms and stops for 0.1 ms. By controlling the operation time of the negative ion generator in this way it is possible to adjust the operating strength. In this case, it should be noted that the ON / OFF period presented here is merely exemplary. The ON / OFF cycle of the negative ion generator can be changed according to the shape or area of the electrode, the applied voltage and output voltage, and the amount of negative ions generated.

On the other hand, when J6 is shorted and J5 is opened by the jumper on the right side, the CPU of the operation unit 10 directly generates a timing control signal to adjust the operating strength of the negative ion generator. In this case, the timing control signal generated by the power supply and the timer built in the control unit 20 is not transmitted to the high voltage applying unit 30, but the timing control signal generated directly by the CPU built in the operation unit 10 is input. It receives and transfers it to the high voltage application unit 30 to control the operating strength of the negative ion generator.

Although not shown in the drawing, the input voltage of the negative ion generator is controlled by varying the primary input value of the high voltage transformer in the high voltage applying unit 30 according to the user's strong / medium / weak selection. It is also possible to use a method of adjusting the operation strength.

Meanwhile, as shown in FIG. 6, the high voltage applying unit 30 and the negative ion generating electrode unit 40 of the negative ion generator may be integrally assembled together. As such, when the high voltage application unit 30 and the negative ion generating electrode unit 40 are integrally assembled and molded inside with epoxy, silicon, polyurethane resin, etc., an accident occurs due to the high voltage generated on the secondary side of the high voltage transformer. Can be prevented and sufficient protection can be made to keep the electrical and electronic components functioning.

Up to now, the negative ion generator using the surface discharge has been described in detail. However, the embodiments of the present invention described herein are merely one embodiment of the technical idea of the present invention, and those skilled in the art may perform other modified embodiments within the technical idea of the present invention. . Therefore, the above description does not limit the scope of the invention as defined by the limitations of the following claims.

According to the anion generator according to the present invention, the anion is stably generated even in a very strong place of the flow of air. Therefore, there is an advantage that it operates smoothly even inside the apparatus, such as an air cleaner in which a blower for forced circulation of indoor air operates. In addition, according to the anion generator according to the present invention, by preventing the excessive generation of ozone, it is possible to prevent the user from feeling uncomfortable or damage to the skin or respiratory system and to create a comfortable indoor atmosphere, while ozone is decomposed The resulting active oxygen is less likely to form nitrogen oxides with nitrogen, so the electrodes do not corrode. Moreover, according to the present invention, the operating intensity of the negative ion generator can be freely adjusted by a user or a sensor (for example, a gas, first, a VOC sensor, etc.), so that the user can appropriately according to the condition of the indoor air or the taste of the user. The amount of negative ions can be controlled.

Claims (5)

An operation unit for generating an operation intensity signal by determining an operation intensity of the negative ion generator through jumper switching according to a user's selection or based on data from a sensor; A power supply and a control unit generating a timing control signal according to the operation intensity signal inputted from the operation unit to control the operation intensity of the negative ion generator by adjusting an ON / OFF cycle of the negative ion generator; A first electrode having a predetermined length in a shape corresponding to the inner surface of the insulating dielectric tube having a circular or polygonal shape, and opposed to the first electrode with the dielectric tube interposed therebetween and having an electrode on the outer surface of the dielectric tube than the first electrode. An anion generating electrode part comprising a second electrode having a wide formation area, And a high voltage applying unit configured to apply a high voltage to the anion generating electrode unit under the control of the power source and the control unit. The method of claim 1, On the surface of the first and second electrodes constituting the anion generating electrode portion, A tube type plasma anion generator characterized by coating a resin of high heat resistance and hardness to reduce ozone generation and to prevent short circuit of the electrode. The method of claim 2, The tube type plasma anion generator, characterized in that the resin is any one of glass, silicone or urethane. The method according to claim 1 or 2, Both ends of the dielectric tube is open, characterized in that the tube type plasma negative ion generator. The method according to claim 1 or 2, A tube type plasma anion generator, characterized in that one end of the dielectric tube is open and the other end is closed, and an opening is formed at the upper end of the hermetic tube.

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