State to state dissociation constants and non-equilibrium vibrational distributions under microwave hydrogen plasmas

The influence of dissociation of Hz(v) molecule at vibrational levels in th e range 10-14 through collisions with H-2 and H on the vibrational distribu tion function (vdf) and the dissociation yield of H-2 in microwave sustaine d reactors has been investigated using recent theoretical estimations of th e dissociation rates based on semi-classical trajectory method, The results show that insertion of H-2(v = 10-14) strongly affects the dissociation pr ocess leading also to a non-Boltzmann vdf of H-2(v). (C) 2001 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.