Light & Engineering Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 56-59, 2015 Svetotekhnika No. 1, 2015, pp. 50-52 INFLUENCE OF SINUSOIDAL AND RECTANGULAR CURRENT SHAPES OF AN INCREASED FREQUENCY ON RESONANT RADIATION OF LP MERCURY DISCHARGE Leonid M. Vasilyak, Alexei M. Voronov, Sergei V.Kostyuchenko, Nikolai N. Kudryavtsev, Vladimir A. Levchenko, Denis A. Sobur, Dmitry V. Sokolov, and Yury E. Shunkov The United Istitute of High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, LIT Joint-Stock Company, the Moscow Power Institute National Research University, Moscow; MPhTI (State University), Moscow oblast; LIT UV Elektro, Isseroda, Germany E-mail: soburda@gmail.com ABSTRACT The article presents experimentally derived results, which show that the effi ciency of the radiation generation of arc LP mercury discharge in resonant mercury lines of 185 and 254 nm slightly depends on the shape of HF discharge current, as judged by the two shapes investigated at a specifi c power of about 2 W/s discharge. <...> Keywords: UV radiation, mercury discharge, LP, 254 nm, 185 nm, amalgam lamp, electron ballast, current shape, voltage shape LP arc discharge in mercury vapour with inert gas as a source of resonant UV radiation at wave lengths of 254 and 185 nm is widely used in industrial settings for disinfection and cleaning of harmful substances in water and air. <...> In this case, to generate UV radiation of a high power, amalgam lamps (AL) of 200–800 W power with 2–5 A current are used [1]. <...> Therefore, the effi ciency of UV radiation generation becomes a key factor. <...> This leads to continuous research into AL optimisation, namely by the increase of energy effi ciency (further ηе) 56 of mercury LP discharge in resonant mercury lines and by the increase of AL’s service life. <...> For bactericidal LP ALs of more than 100 W power, special electron ballasts were developed. <...> The study of current frequency infl uence on the generation of mercury resonant UV radiation effi ciency [1– 7] has shown that the optimum frequency lies in the interval between 10 and 100 kHz. <...> When <...>