Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Avoiding ozone

Quince - 30-4-2005 at 15:46

A glow discharge in air creates ozone. Now, would I get a significant decrease of ozone produced if I replaced the atmosphere with that of burned propane, that is, carbon dioxide and water vapor? And would that decrease electrode erosion?

Scratch- - 30-4-2005 at 18:39

You probably dont want water condensing in your apperatus. You could produce CO<sub>2</sub> from acid + carbonate/bicarbonate, acetic acid and baking soda probably being the cheapest. Just pass your gas through a cold tube to remove most of the water.

I dont know about corrosion and reactions at high temperatures/voltages though.

[Edited on 5/1/2005 by Scratch-]

uber luminal - 30-4-2005 at 23:22

if your going to run this experiment for long periods of time, with you or others in the area, you might also want to consider reading MSDS's for NO and NO2.

So what makes you think CO2 and H2O wouldnt get broken down into CO+O and H2+O2? (from the light and heat given off from the plasma, not the workings of the plasma itself)

What is that blasted calculation for figuring out what min/max wavelength will break apart coumpounds? E = hc/wavelength or somehting.

I could be wrong, but I speculate that O3 wont exsist within the plasma at any time. ever.

Quince - 1-5-2005 at 01:25

I can smell the O3.

The power frequencies here are below 50 kHz. Or do you mean the emitted radiation? There's some UV.

I could build a catalyst-plated cage if noxious gases are a problem, but I'm interested in the electrodes here.

[Edited on 1-5-2005 by Quince]

uber luminal - 1-5-2005 at 07:06

right, so my question is... If O3 can't be within the plasma, and if there is enough EMR to break down O3 around the plasma, would O3 even affect the electrodes?

er rather what im saying is, I dont think O3 on the electrodes would be a problem. just the O2 and O :)

12AX7 - 1-5-2005 at 10:10

AFAIK, by definition a plasma is free radicals (being freed from their electrons as a soup). Outside of it, the UV emissions readily create O2+O3 though. Such is the familiar smell of any high voltage discharge (which is typically too low in temperature to dissociate much nitrogen, but the length emits enough UV radiation to excite things).

No idea what UV and such will do to COx and H2O compounds.

Tim