CHEMICAL SCAVENGER PROBE STUDIES OF ATOM AND EXCITED MOLECULE REACTIVITY IN ACTIVE NITROGEN FROM A SUPERSONIC STREAM

Abstract

A quartz chemical scavenger probe has been developed to study the local composition of supersonic electrically discharged gas streams. The probe samples the central portion of a nonequilibrium jet and allows direct comparison with other local measurement techniques (e.g. differential catalytic detectors) for determining active species concentrations. Active nitrogen from a Mach 3 stream was sampled and reacted inside the probe with one of the scavenger gases NO, NH3, or C2H4at 18.8 mm Hg and at an average temperature of 500 °K. Limiting values of the NO destruction rate and the HCN production rate were observed; however, NH3destruction exhibited no plateau. The observed maximum rate of NO destruction was 2.1 times as large as the NO flow rate at the light titration end-point. This difference is attributed to a reaction of NO, added in excess of the titration end-point flow, with metastable electronically excited molecules formed within the discharge zone. The converging-diverging supersonic nozzle-glow discharge source used in these experiments apparently delivers metastable excited molecules to the reaction zone in a higher relative concentration than do the more conventional subsonic electrical discharge flow systems used for most previous active nitrogen studies.