Ionization in High-Temperature Gases

This volume is based to a large extent on the Conference on Ions in Flames and Rocket Exhausts sponsored by the American Rocket Society in Palm Springs, California, October 10-12, 1962. With the advent of space flight and space exploration and with the current research and development activities in plasma physics and magnetohydrodynamics, the subject of ionization in high-temperature gases has assumed an important place in the forefront of research. A perusal of the table of contents will indicate the wide scope of problems in which ionization, i.e., the production of free electrons and ions, plays an important role. To set the stage and orient the reader, who will not necessarily be an expert in this field, we have provided in Section I two authoritative review articles which are concerned with the thermodynamics and the basic elementary processes of gaseous ionization. The information contained therein is basic to the more complex problems discussed in the subsequent sections. The study of the mechanism and energetics of the elementary chemical reaction in flames, as detailed in the papers in Section II, has contributed greatly to our understanding of ionization in combustion systems. Among the many topics discussed in these papers are: chemi-ionization, i.e., the production of ions and electrons in nonequilibrium concentrations through specific chemical reactions, the kinetics and thermodynamics of electron attachment and detachment reactions, electron-ion recombination reactions, and conductivity measurements in flames. The fundamental information obtained from these flame studies has provided us with a better understanding and control of the many complex phenomena in aerospace applications.