Enhancing Velocity and Energy Efficiency of Ionic Wind by Joule-Heating the Discharge Electrode

Ionic wind has shown promising applications in many fields, but it still encounters the challenges of low wind velocity and high discharge voltage. Here we propose a method of enhancing the velocity of ionic wind at given discharge voltages by Joule-heating the discharge electrode in a wire-grid corona discharge scheme. Ionic wind velocity is found to increase with the temperature of the discharge electrode with an enhancement by a magnitude of more than one order at low discharge voltages. Despite of additional energy consumption for Joule-heating, the overall energy efficiency of ionic wind production can be simultaneously enhanced. Numerical simulations indicate that the enhancement of ionic wind velocity is attributed to the increase of the mean free path of electron-molecule collisions and thus ion density near the hot electrode. Furthermore, we get a further ionic wind velocity enhancement by several times via covering the hot discharge electrode with Y<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub>O<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> film to increase electron density near the hot electrode by thermionic electron emission.