FEM Analyses of Excitation Efficiency of Airborne Ultrasound Catalysis Mechanisms

Airborne ultrasound catalysis utilizes ultrasound in air to enhance the performance of gas sensors and metal-air batteries. Our team already proposed several types of ultrasonic excitation mechanisms for the airborne ultrasound catalysis. In order to gain more in-depth insights of the excitation efficiency of the proposed ultrasonic excitation mechanisms, this work employs the finite element method to analyze the sound pressure per driving voltage at the resonance state of the mechanisms as ultrasonic excitation efficiency (UEE). The results obtained in this work are as follows. The UEE can be enhanced by wrapping the standing wave acoustic field with a soft material. The UEE of the focused acoustic field is higher than that of the standing wave acoustic field. Using a conical aluminum shell as the excitation mechanism can significantly enhance the UEE of a focused acoustic field. These findings provide guidelines for the optimization of the airborne ultrasound catalysis.