Series Resonant Inverter Efficiency Improvement with Valley Switching for Dielectric Barrier Discharges

This paper presents the analysis of a Series Resonant Inverter for Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) applications, operating in discontinuous current mode. The study of different factors that can improve the efficiency and behavior of the converter are presented. First, the implementation of the converter is studied with two possible locations of the resonant inductance. The inductance location can be used to decrease the stress voltage of the switching components. Additionally, the effects of the parasitic elements are stated and the use of the Valley Switching technique to reduce the turn-on switching losses is proposed. Experimental results are included, showing the system improvements.