Comparative Analysis of Three Converters Providing Power to a Discharge Lamp-electronic Ballast System Designed for Water Sterilization

Water, an essential resource, has faced a continuous decline in quality over the years. Addressing this concern is crucial, and UV-C technology emerges as a fitting solution, meeting both quality treatment and environmental preservation needs. The UV bactericidal concept involves generating ultraviolet rays in a treatment chamber containing water. Ensuring a reliable power supply to low-pressure mercury-argon discharge lamps is imperative for the efficacy of UV-C disinfection. This research aims to identify the most optimal power source. To achieve this, the discharge lamp-electronic ballast system will be energized by three different converter types. The first utilizes a conventional converter with a half-bridge rectifier and inverter, employing PWM control. The second employs a 4-cell serial multicell converter, adopting a direct control strategy. The third relies on a single-phase matrix converter. Therefore, modern converters utilizing semiconductor-based switches with high switching frequencies (above 50 kHz for MOSFETs) have been used in this study.