Kinetics versus thermodynamics on CO <sub>2</sub> dissociation in high temperature microwave discharges
Lucia Daniela Pietanza, Gianpiero Colonna, M. Capitelli
Abstract
Abstract Recent experiments by Groen et al (2019 Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 28 075016) on CO 2 activation at high translational temperature (3500 < T g < 5500 K) are analyzed with a self-consistent code describing the vibrational kinetics of reacting CO 2 together with CO and O 2 and the corresponding electron Boltzmann equation. The kinetics results are compared with the corresponding thermodynamics values. This comparison shows that the major components of the mixture, i.e. CO and O can be described by the thermodynamic approach, while the other minor components present large deviation from equilibrium. A qualitative agreement is found between experimental and theoretical values of electron density, E / N and electron temperature in both diffuse and contracted regimes. The theoretical vibrational distributions as well as the corresponding electron energy distribution functions present non-equilibrium effects even at the considered high translational temperature.