Sterilization Characteristics of Ozone-mist Spray for Chemical Free Agriculture
K. Ebihara1,2, F. Mitsugi2, T. Ikegami2, Y. Yamashita3, Y. Hashimoto3, T. Yamashita3, S. Kanazawa4, H. D. Stryczewska5, J. Pawlat5, S. Teii6, and T.-L. Sung6
1Environment and Energy Laboratory, Japan
2Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Kumamoto University, Japan
3Sanwa hi-tech Co. Ltd, Japan
4Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Oita University, Japan
5Lublin University of Technology, Poland
6Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Abstract- We have developed an ozone-mist spray system for chemical free agricultural sterilization. This environmentally friendly system is the movable and backpack type in which the high density ozone is generated by surface dielectric barrier discharge in oxygen. The ozone gas is injected into the water-mist which is produced by the water spray nozzle. The ozone-mist is sprayed over harmful insects, viruses and bacteria living on/in the plants. The ozone solubility of the ozone-mist water is over 5ppm in the case of standard treatment conditions (oxygen flow rate 1 L/min, mist water flow rate 0.3 L/min). Many kinds of harmful insects were sterilized to evaluate the sterilization characteristics and operation management by changing conditions such as ozone concentration, oxygen flow rate, mist water flow rate, distance between nozzle and biological objects using various structures of the spray nozzle system. Typical experiment shows that the survival rate in the case of aphids (small insects of a few mm size) becomes practical value of about 10% for very short spray time of 10 sec.
Keywords-Ozone-mist, sterilization, spray, chemical-free, harmful insect