instructables
Ozone Generator
by BrittLiv
At some point last year my car’s air conditioning unit
started to develop a bad smell, which is a sign that
mold has formed on the condenser. Unfortunately,
this part is hard to reach and cleaning the condenser
is hence a big problem. I went through a set of
commercial climate control cleaning products and
found most of them pretty useless:
1) Two different disinfectants in spray cans that are
sold as climate control unit cleaners: The spray cans
are easy to use as you just put them into the car and
let them spray their content while the ventilation is
running. Unfortunately, the smell was back two days
after their application. I guess the sprays are a
combination of a perfume (they leave a strong lemon-
like smell in the car) and am mild disinfectant like
isopropanol. The latter one is not good for killing mold
if it reaches the condenser at all.
2) A spray can with a long tube to spray disinfectant
and cleaner directly onto the condenser. This is
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actually a pretty good system and preferred by most
workshops due the simplicity and easy application. It
actually removes organic matter from the condenser
and typically protects it with a good fungicide.
However, you have to be able to reach the condenser
with the tube which in my case sadly wasn't possible.
It would have meant a lot of extra work to make it
accessible. Also, the ventilation shafts are not
cleaned by this method.
Talking to a mechanic I found out that some
workshops use ozone generators to deodorize such
cars. They use it also to remove cigarette smells or
other unpleasant odors. Due to its gaseous state,
short lifetime and exceptional reactivity ozone can
reach the radiator, reacts with the mold (killing it) and
vanishes without a trace after some hours. As
professional ozone generators and cleaning services
are pretty expensive, I decide to build a simple ozone
generator from cheap available parts.
Step 1: DISCLAIMER
1st: In this instructable you are going to work with
dangerous voltage (110/220 V up to several kilovolts)
to create Ozone which is a hazardous substance.
Make sure to always use a ground fault circuit
interrupter during building, testing and using the
device. Also, make sure that all metal casings are
properly grounded. If you are not sure, I strongly
advice to use a portable GFCI plug like this one to
keep yourself from harm.
2nd: Ozone is a very aggressive substance which
Step 2: What Is Ozone and Where Does It Come From?
Most of you probably mainly know ozone from the so
called ozone layer, a naturally occurring layer in our
atmosphere that protects life on earth from UV
radiation.
Ozone is a molecule build purely from oxygen atoms.
But in contrast to our “breathable air” oxygen (that
consists of two oxygen atoms) ozone is built from
three. Chemists call this difference in atomic
constitution an allotropy. Although this difference
sounds insignificant at first, the ozone molecule is
much more active than our “standard” air oxygen.
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irritates and damages the eyes, throat and respiratory
system at already very low concentrations of 1 ppm
(0.0001 Vol-% or 2 mg/m³). Luckily, the substance
has a very characteristic odor and the odor threshold
for humans is below 0.1 ppm. This means that you
will smell the gas well before it reaches dangerous
concentrations. NEVER run the generator in an
enclosed space together with living animals
(including yourself, your pets,…) and ventilate the
room for several hours before entering it again.
Also, Ozone is metastable, which means that it is
energetically favored to dissociate according to the
following equation:
2 O3 ® 3 O2 Hf0= -286 kJ
To give you an idea of this value: The decomposition
of 2 mol O3 (96 g of ozone) alone (not including any
heat from reaction of ozone with other substances) is
enough energy to heat 1 kg of water from 10°C to
80°C.
Step 3: Where Does Ozone Come From?
As described in step 2 ozone is not a very stable
substance that can decompose without any other
partner into oxygen. Consequently, ozone cannot
survive very long under ambient conditions and
cannot be stored without major obstacles. To use it, it
has to be generated on spot.
There are three major sources for ozone:
1st ) In our upper atmosphere ozone is build up by
irradiating oxygen with energetic ultraviolet radiation.
The highly energetic radiation cleaves the O-O bond
and forms two oxygen radicals that react with other
oxygen molecules to ozone. You can find a lot of
detailed information about that on Wikipedia. You can
buy UV based ozone generators mainly to disinfect
water (e.g. here), but for our intended purpose of
deodorizing a room the amount of ozone is typically
too small.
2nd) In the presence of nitrogen oxides and volatile
hydrocarbons ozone can be build up in the lower
atmosphere, which is (in contrast to upper sphere
ozone) harmful for humans, animals and plants. This
phenomenon is typically known as “summer smog”.
NO2 (which can be formed e.g. in combustion
engines, fired heating systems,… ) is decomposed by
UV radiation into NO and ozone.
NO2 ® O + NO
O2 + O ® O3
This process would essentially be completely
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reversible, however, in the presence of hydrocarbons
(e.g. only partially burned fuel) NO is converted again
into NO2.
R-CH3+ 2 O2 + 2 NO ® R-CHO + 2 NO2 + H2O
With better combustion engines and exhaust
catalysts the emission of hydrocarbons and NO2 (and
hence also summer smog) has been drastically
reduced.
3rd) Electricity: Do you know the smell of an old laser
printer when operated? You will get the same near an
electric arc or near a place where lightning struck
during a storm. All have in common that high voltage
is used to ionize the air. During this process large
amounts of ozone can be generated. Most of the
electrical ozone generators do in fact not use
electrical arks (as those are bad to handle and lead to
rapid material degradation) but corona discharges.
Again, you can read a lot about those e.g. on
Wikipedia.
There are some pretty impressive electrical driven
ozone generators out there. I decide to go with these
as they are quite cheap (around $30 and even less if
you get them from China), easy to handle and
generate an astonishing amount ~ 10 g/hour of
ozone. This does not sound like much in the
beginning, but keep in mind that for deodorizing cars
rates of 0.5 g/h are enough and professional room
cleaning generators are aiming for 5 to 10 g/h.
Step 4: Concept and Layout
As you can see in the picture, the layout is pretty
straightforward: The ozone generator panels are put
into a metal box together with some powerful fans
(located in the backplane) that cool the whole system
and transport the generated ozone to the outside of
the box. A relay board together with an Arduino Uno
board are used to control the whole system.
Two 5-position rotary switches are used to set the
desired power level and runtime. To save some DIO
pins on the Arduino we’ll use a resistor network and
the analog inputs to read the switch position. The
“start” button is used to start the generator (duh) and
some LEDs indicate which panel is currently running
and if the fans are on. A “boost” button is used to
optionally have a strong start (both generators
running continuously for 10 minutes) and a lower
ozone formation afterwards. This can be useful e.g.
for cars where you want to fill the room with ozone in
the beginning and keep it at a lower level for a few
hours afterwards.
The generator uses 220V AC for the ozone generator
panels and powers a 12 DC converter for the Arduino
Uno controller and for the fans. You will find a more
detailed electrical layout later in the instructable.
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You have to consider three important points in the
layout:
1st) The fans need to be powerful enough to cool the
O3 generators and transport new oxygen to the
generator panels. I used two 80 mm 12V fans for
servers. Also the 12V power supply has to be good
enough to supply the fans, the Arduino and the
relays.
2nd) High voltage (the O3 generator uses a few kV)
means that voltage flashovers can occur. Keep
cables at least 5 cm away from the panels and if you
are using a metal enclosure (I used on for fire safety
reasons) be sure to ground every part properly.
3rd) The high voltage generators produce some
electrical noice that can be harmful to small electrical
components. Be sure to keep the Arduino and the
relay board away from the generators. I also found it
helpful the put the AC-DC transformer in between
those systems as the (grounded) metal case of the
transformer acts as a barrier.
Step 5: Drilling the Front and Back Plane

I used metal holesaws to drill the openings for the buttons, the power cable, the air inlets, the LEDs, and the fan
outlets into the metal front- and backplane. I found it very helpful to put the metal backplanes between two pieces
of wood to keep them from bending and used a printout of my intended design to position the drill.

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Step 6: Electrical Layout and Code

I have attached an image of the final layout as a
guideline, you can find the electrical layout in the
second picture. The Arduino code to control the
system is given below.
I have tested the generator two months ago, by
putting it into the passenger cell of my car, guiding
the power cable through an open window (seal the slit
with tape) and turning the air conditioning on. After
letting the air circulate for 120 minutes while the
generator was running on the lowest setting I
unpluged the generator and opened all doors to air
out the passenger cell. After 4 hours the ozone smell
was gone and the whole car smelled as good as new.
Until now the moldy smell has not returned.
So if you are having the same problem, give this
method a shot.

Download (https://cdn.instructables.com/ORIG/FUV/SP48/J4SQ5SS5/FUVSP48J4SQ5SS5.ino)
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(https://cdn.instructables.com/ORIG/FUV/SP48/J4SQ5SS5/FUVSP48J4SQ5SS5.ino)

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