No abstract

Since air is a natural part of our environment, special attention is given to the study of plasmas in air at atmospheric pressure and their applications. This fact promoted the study of electrical conduction in air-like mixtures, i.e. mixtures containing an electronegative gas component. If the ionization growth is not limited its temporal evolution leads to spark formation, i.e. a thermal plasma of several thousand kelvins in a quasi-local thermodynamic equilibrium state. But before reaching such a thermal state, a plasma sets up where the electrons increase their energy characterized by an electron temperature T e much higher than that of heavy species T or T + for the ions. Since the plasma is no longer characterized by only one temperature T , it is said to be in a nonthermal plasma (NTP) state. Practical ways are listed to prevent electron ionization from going beyond the NTP states. Much understanding of such NTP may be gathered from the study of the simple paradigmatic case of a discharge induced between a sharp positively stressed point electrode facing a grounded negative plane electrode. Some physical properties will be gathered from such configurations and links underlined between these properties and some associated applications, mostly environmental. Aerosol filtration and electrostatic precipitators, pollution control by removal of hazardous species contained in flue gas exhaust, sterilization applications for medical purposes and triggering fuel combustion in vehicle motors are among such applications nowadays.

Using a 2D model, an attempt is made to understand the properties and aspects of a diffuse discharge, appearing in a positive point-to-plane gap submitted to very high voltage pulses. After presenting the model, comparisons between the computed low and high pulse heights of 10 kV and 50 kV, respectively, will be shown and analysed. A streamer ionising wave is still formed, but its role in ionising a region of low field is replaced by the role of providing a plasma within which the electrons will benefit from the presence of a high electrical field meant to induce strong electron collision activities. A comparison between the aspect of the computed and experimental discharge carried out in the same conditions at 50 kV will be presented, which seems to be in agreement with the diffuse aspect. Although the difference in order of magnitude of the speed of development and the height of the current must be underlined, similarities between the structures of both situations will, however, be recognised. A high probability of obtaining highly energetic electrons and runaways (RAEs) will also be derived following a simple approach.