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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Non-equilibrium Microwave Plasma for Efficient High Temperature Chemistry
Published on: August 1, 2017
Sensitivity of an exothermic chemical wave front to a departure from local equilibrium
1Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kasprzaka 44/52, 01-224 Warsaw, Poland.
Abstract:
We study the propagation of an exothermic chemical wave front in a reactive dilute gas and show that the particle velocity distribution departs from the Maxwellian form in the front zone. The analytical corrections to the balance equations for concentrations, temperature, and stream velocity induced by the departure from local equilibrium are derived from a perturbative solution of the Boltzmann equation. Our analytical predictions of the front properties, including its propagation speed, compare well with microscopic simulations of the particle dynamics.
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