A kinetic scheme for non-equilibrium discharge in nitrogen-oxygen mixtures is developed, which almost wholly describes chemical transformations of particles in t h e cold (200 K g T < 500 K) vibrationally unexcited gas. The kinetic scheme includes processes of excitation of electronic states, destruction and ionization of heavy panicles by electron impact, associative ionization, electron attachment and detachment, electron-ion and ion-ion recombination, chemical transformations of neutral panicles (in ground and excited electronic states) and ion conversion. On the basis of kinetic modelling in the framework of the kinetic scheme proposed, the influence of the electronic excitations of nitrogen molecules and atoms on air composition dynamics is analysed L~ ~ -I 12 501-8

The work represents a ramified kinetic scheme of plasma chemical processes in a non-equilibrium hydrogen plasma that allows one to model in detail the dynamics of an electric discharge in a molecular gas. The scheme describes processes of interaction of electrons with heavy particles (including a vast set of processes of electronic-vibrational excitation of hydrogen molecules by electron impact), vibrational kinetics of the H2 molecules and processes with participation of hydrogen atoms, positive and negative ions.The possibility of reaching a high level of vibrational non-equilibrium of the molecular component of the gas under conditions characterized by high values of gas temperature and concentration of atomic hydrogen (which is an effective quencher of the vibrational levels of the H2(X) particles) is demonstrated by the examp!e of the pu!sed high-current low-pressure discharge. Such a possibility is conditioned by the high efficiency of the processes of vibrational excitation of hydrogen molecules via singlet electronic terms. It is also shown that quick gas heating during~the discharge at sufficiently high electron energy (T. 2 2 eV) is substantially governed by the processes of dissociative excitation of electronic states of the hydrogen molecules by direct electron impact.

A self-consistent plasmachemical model describing the dynamics of the non-equilibrium microwave discharge in molecular nitrogen with consideration for kinetic, photochemical and electrodynamic phenomena is proposed. The photochemical block of the model accounts for the processes of photoexcitation and photoionization of nitrogen molecules in the ground and excited electronic states. Radiative emittance of the discharge plasma is conditioned by the processes of photorecombination of electrons and positive ions as well as by the processes of spontaneous radiation of electronically excited molecules. Solution of radiation transfer equations and calculation of photochemical constants were made with allowance for the vibrational-rotational structure of the corresponding radiative transitions. The calculations performed have shown that the velocities of the ionization front propagation in the microwave discharge that were observed experimentally may be explained without invoking considerations concerning the existence of easily ionizable admixtures in nitrogen. The phenomenon of electron generation in the photohalo region of the discharge is mainly conditioned by the processes of stepwise photoionization of nitrogen molecules. The mechanisms leading to the development of kinetic instabilities in the discharge region are analysed, and a satisfactory agreement between calculation and experimental results is noted.

A new kinetic scheme of the non-equilibrium gas discharge plasma is employed to describe the characteristics of a low-pressure cascaded arc plasma in pure hydrogen. The presented kinetic model includes the dynamics of the following plasma components: vibrationally excited hydrogen molecules in the ground electronic state , hydrogen atoms in the ground and electronically excited states (H(n), n=1,2,...) and electrons, positive and negative hydrogen ions . It has been shown that the low-pressure hydrogen cascaded arc plasma is characterized by high degrees of ionization and dissociation, and can generate high-density fluxes of vibrationally excited hydrogen molecules and negative ions.

A kinetic model is proposed, allowing us to describe the kinetics of the electronic components of a non-equilibrium low-temperature argon plasma over a wide range of values of the degrees of the ionization. The model incorporates a large number of electronic states of argon atoms (up to n ∼ 30) and takes into account the processes of electron elastic scattering from neutral argon atoms and ions, electronic excitation and deexcitation by electron impact, the processes of ionization of atoms in collisions with electrons and unexcited atoms and mutually reverse processes of electron-ion recombination, reactions of dissociative recombination and electron-impact dissociation of molecular ions. The results of calculations performed in the framework of the proposed model have shown that the electron energy distribution in a high-pressure plasma may conserve a non-Maxwellian character up to rather high values of the degree of ionization (n e /N ∼ 3 × 10 −3 ), principally following the ionization and recombination processes initiated by atomic impact.