Quantify the effect of omitted ozone and electronically excited species

Determine how including ozone and electronically excited species in the chemical mechanism changes the predicted downstream oxygen distribution and CO yield in the vortex-stabilized microwave CO2 plasma reactor.

Background

The five-species mechanism used in the simulations omits ozone and electronically excited species. The authors argue that ozone is unlikely to accumulate in the hot plasma and early afterglow, where most conversion occurs, but it may influence the downstream distributions of O and O2.

Because the present mechanism cannot quantify this effect, extending the chemistry to include these species is an explicitly unresolved problem.