Fundamental and Applied Aspects of NO Synthesis in Air Plasma

The synthesis of nitrogen oxides in air plasma is one of the old timers in plasma technology. This endothermic plasma-chemical process is usually presented simply as 

Mechanisms of NO Synthesis Provided in Non-Thermal Plasma by Excitation of Neutral Molecules Zeldovich Mechanism 

The process of NO synthesis (6-1) is produced in plasma by numerous elementary processes. The limiting stage is related to the breaking of the strong bond (10 eV) in the N2 molecttle. Such breaking of the N-N chemical bond takes place very efficiently in reactions of vibrationally excited nitrogen molecules  

The formation of highly vibrationally excited N2 molecules takes place in vibrational-vibrational (W) exchange between the molecnles at the lower vibrational states, excited 

The contribution of this electroiucally adiabatic reaction (see Section 6.2) in moderate-and high-pressure plasma systems is limited by the fast relaxation of electroiucally excited oxygen atoms 0( D) (Andreev Nikitin, 1976). In general, NO synthesis through electronic excitation in plasma is mostly due to the dissociation of molecular nitrogen by direct electron impact  

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