Abstract
A new two-temperature chemical kinetics model for nitrogen plasmas is presented. The model is used together with the vibrationally-specific collisional-radiative model to study the effects of vibrational nonequilibrium distributions on the chemical composition of two-temperature atmospheric pressure nitrogen plasmas. It is found that over a wide range of conditions the vibrational levels follow Boltzmann distributions and that the vibrational temperature Tv is well approximated by gas temperature Tg at low electron number densities and by electron temperature Te at high electron number densities. This result suggests that simple kinetic models with two-temperature rate coefficients can be used to reliably model nonthermal plasmas. The calculation also yields a surprising result that, for a given constant gas temperature, the steady-state electron number density exhibits an S-shaped dependence on the electron temperature. This S-shaped behavior is caused by competing ionization, charge transfer reactions, two-body dissociative recombination, and three-body electron recombination reactions, and therefore is characteristic of molecular plasmas.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
M. Laroussi, IEEE Trans. on Plasma Sci. 24, 1188 (1996).
L. Pierrot, L. Yu, R. J. Gessman, C. O. Laux, and C. H. Kruger, “Collisional-Radiative Modeling of Nonequilibrium Effects in Nitrogen Plasmas,” Proc. 30th AIAA Plasma-dynamics and Lasers Conference, AIAA 99-3478, Norfolk, VA (1999).
C. Park, J. Thermophys. and Heat Transfer 7, 385 (1993).
L. Yu, L. Pierrot, C. O. Laux, and C. H. Kruger, “Effects of Vibrational Nonequilibrium on the Chemistry of Two-Temperature Nitrogen Plasmas,” Proc. 14th International Symposium on Plasma Chemistry, 3, Prague, Czech Republic (1999), p. 1079.
M. J. Seaton, in Atomic and Molecular Processes: Vol. 13 (D. R. Bates, ed.), Academic Press (1962), p. 375.
M. Gryzinski, Phys. Rev. 138, 336 (1962).
J. Bacri and A. Medani, Physica 101C, 399 (1980).
H. W. Drawin, in Plasma Diagnostics (Loche-Holtgreven, ed.), North-Holland, Amsterdam (1968).
C. Park, AIAA J. 6, 2090 (1968).
C. Park, Nonequilibrium Hypersonic Aerothermodynamics, Wiley, New York (1989).
D. R. Bates, A. E. Kingston, and R. W. P. McWhirter, Proc. Roy. Soc. A267, 297 (1962).
W. Hwang, Y.-K. Kim, and M. E. Rudd, J. Chem. Phys. 104, 2956 (1996).
T. Majeed and D. J. Strickland, J. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data 26, 335 (1997).
S. P. Sharma, W. D. Gillespie, and S. A. Meyer, AIAA Paper 91-0573 (1991).
R. F. Stebbings, B. R. Turner, and A. C. H. Smith, J. Chem. Phys. 38, 2277 (1963).
S. C. Brown, Basic Data of Plasma Physics, MIT Press (1966).
J. R. Peterson, A. Le Padellec, H. Danared, G. H. Dunn, M. Larrson, A. Larson, R. Peverall, C. S. R. Stromholm, M. af Ugglas, and W. J. van der Zande, J. Chem. Phys. 108, 1978 (1998).
Y. K. Kazansky and I. S. Yelets. J. Phys. B 17, 4767 (1984).
G. D. Billing and E. R. Fischer, J. Chem. Phys. 43, 395 (1979).
R. C. Millikan and D. R. White, J. Chem. Phys. 39, 98 (1963).
R. C. Millikan and D. R. White, J. Chem. Phys. 39, 3209 (1963).
A. V. Bogdanov, Y. N. Zhuk, K. S. Klopovskii, and V. A. Pavlov, Sov. Phys.: Tech. Phys. 35, 145 (1990).
R. J. Kee, F. M. Rupley, and J. A. Miller, “Chemkin-II: A Fortran Chemical Kinetics Package for the Analysis of Gas Phase Chemical Kinetics”, Report No. SAND89-8009 (1989).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yu, L., Pierrot, L., Laux, C.O. et al. Effects of Vibrational Nonequilibrium on the Chemistry of Two-Temperature Nitrogen Plasmas. Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing 21, 483–503 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012073800284
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012073800284