Electron transport coefficients in the mixtures of H2O with N2, O2, CO2 and dry air for the optimization of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasmas

This paper presents the simultaneous measurement and calculation of the electron drift velocity in binary and ternary mixtures of N-2, O-2, CO2 with H2O. The main aim of this study has been the generation of a self-consistent set of validated collision cross sections that explain thoroughly the dependence of the electron drift velocity in the above pure gases and their mixtures. In doing this, changes to the collision cross section set for H2O had to be made, while all other cross section sets remained unchanged. It is worth mentioning that only a few experiments had been performed before dealing with water mixtures. The electron drift velocities in the binary and ternary mixtures under study show the effects of negative differential conductivity, and this has been explained thoroughly in terms of the collision cross sections and electron distribution functions through a multi-term Boltzmann code. It is important to note that two-term codes fail to predict the dependence of the drift velocity at low water concentrations and low E/N values. Calculated values of longitudinal and transverse diffusion coefficients, mean energies and distribution functions are also given over the E/N range 0.1 Td-2 kTd (1 Td = 10(-17) V cm(2)).