Abstract

The recent focus of research with electrohydraulic discharges is on bacteria and microorganism inactivation. The processes and main
biocidal effects in which this occurs are not fully understood. In this paper a study of energy emission from electrohydraulic spark
discharge is presented. The spark discharge was generated in a cylindrical reactor 25 mm in diameter made of PTFE between a stainless
steel hollow needle electrode and a steel rod electrode. Distilled water was used and the flow was 30 ml/min. The gap between the
electrodes was 3 mm. Spark discharge energy was measured to be 1.2-1.4 J. Measurements show that over 50% of this energy is used for
heating of the reactor and electrodes, and about 2% for acoustic waves. The rest of the discharge energy, i.e. ~0.54 J, is distributed among
UV/Vis radiation, production of primary active species and ultrasonic.

Key words: spark discharge, electrohydraulic discharge, energy emission.