On the NOx generation in ‘cold’ electrical discharges
A theory developed by scientists to study NO x production by solar proton events shows that the Nox production rate is approximately equal to the rate of production of ion pairs during the proton impact. Since the bulk of ionization in such events is produced by secondary electron impacts, the same concept is used here for the first time to study the NO x production in low pressure discharges, corona discharges and streamer discharges in which the source of ionization is the electron impacts. Using experimental data pertinent to corona discharges it is established that, as in the case of proton impacts, the rate of N O x production is approximately equal to the rate of production of ion pairs. The theory in turn is applied to study the NO x production in streamer and low pressure electrical discharges. In low pressure discharges the efficiency of Nox production is given by α (p,E)/eE Nox molecules/J, where α (p,E) is the Townsend’s first ionization coefficient, p is the atmospheric pressure, is the electronic charge and e Eis the electric field. The results show that the N O x production in low pressure discharges depends not only on the energy dissipated but also on the ambient pressure and the electric field. In addition, it is found that that the N O x production efficiency of a discharge depends not only on the energy dissipation but also on the pressure and the electric field. In the case of streamer discharges, the N O x molecules produced by the streamer in propagating a unit distance is approximately given by k/2NeE , where N is the number of positive ions located in the streamer head.
Vernon Cooray Marley Becerra Mahbubur Rahman
Division for electricity and lightning research, ngstrm Laboratory, Department of Engineering Sciences, Box 534, SE-751 21, Uppsala University, Sweden
国际会议
第13届国际大气电学会议(The 13th International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity)
北京
英文
2007-08-13（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）