>"Since 2009, Singleton and his colleagues at Transient Plasma Systems have been developing an ignition system that would address this challenge for lean-burn engines. It works by condensing megawatts of power into nanosecond pulses of plasma created from ionizing the air around the plug’s electrodes; that’s the power of six semitrucks released hundreds of times faster than the speed of lightning.
Transient Plasma’s ignition system consists of a power supply that looks a bit like an internet router. It is connected to a series of plasma plugs in each cylinder of the engine. The power supply banks energy from the car’s battery and releases it through the plugs in an ultrafast burst of blue plasma. It’s a low-energy, low-temperature version of more energetic pulsed power systems like rail guns and the lasers that physicists use to simulate nuclear blasts.
The main difference between the plasma plug and conventional spark plugs is that it doesn’t ignite a combustion reaction by transferring heat. In fact, it doesn’t have enough thermal energy to even light a match.
Instead, it directly bombards the air molecules with electrons to break them into more reactive elements, like atomic oxygen.
This rapid infusion of non-thermal energy causes the molecules to slam together in the fuel mixture, which kicks off the combustion reaction. If a conventional spark plug is like a lighter, Singleton’s plasma plug is more like a lightning bolt."
PDS: I seem to remember reading something sometime back about some company doing something like this to ordinary water, to convert it into an apparently reactive fuel...
Also, combustion and engines aside, the above technique might find an application in chemistry, that is, to react (better) chemicals/reagents normally thought to be non-reactive or only partially reactive at a certain temperatures...
That is, in Chemistry:
plasma = catalyst (At least, there's a good case to be made for this...)
(Also, possibly, free electrons = catalyst (maybe, depending on reaction...))
Transient Plasma’s ignition system consists of a power supply that looks a bit like an internet router. It is connected to a series of plasma plugs in each cylinder of the engine. The power supply banks energy from the car’s battery and releases it through the plugs in an ultrafast burst of blue plasma. It’s a low-energy, low-temperature version of more energetic pulsed power systems like rail guns and the lasers that physicists use to simulate nuclear blasts.
The main difference between the plasma plug and conventional spark plugs is that it doesn’t ignite a combustion reaction by transferring heat. In fact, it doesn’t have enough thermal energy to even light a match.
Instead, it directly bombards the air molecules with electrons to break them into more reactive elements, like atomic oxygen.
This rapid infusion of non-thermal energy causes the molecules to slam together in the fuel mixture, which kicks off the combustion reaction. If a conventional spark plug is like a lighter, Singleton’s plasma plug is more like a lightning bolt."
PDS: I seem to remember reading something sometime back about some company doing something like this to ordinary water, to convert it into an apparently reactive fuel...
Also, combustion and engines aside, the above technique might find an application in chemistry, that is, to react (better) chemicals/reagents normally thought to be non-reactive or only partially reactive at a certain temperatures...
That is, in Chemistry:
plasma = catalyst (At least, there's a good case to be made for this...)
(Also, possibly, free electrons = catalyst (maybe, depending on reaction...))