What is Plasma?

Very useful information on fundamentals of Plasma. Thanks are due to Hypertherm for the valuable psot.

When we add more energy, the water vaporizes into hydrogen and oxygen, in the form of steam. NOPE, NOPE, NOPE.

Not quite true. Water goes through several disassociations as you increase it's energy levels. Obviously, we go from ice to liquid, and then from liquid to vapor or steam, depending upon how hot and dense it is. Remember though that water vapor is supported by the air itself, whereas steam relies upon it's energy level to maintain it's gaseous state.

Now however, if enough energy is pumped into the steam, the molecular bonds will be broken and you will be left with H₂ and O₂ gas. Given enough energy, the gasses will ionize, and yes, you will have a plasma. But it will take on hell of a lot of energy. And of course as the plasma loses energy it will tend to reform into water vapor once again.

DrMoose

"Now however, if enough energy is pumped into the steam, the molecular bonds will be broken and you will be left with H₂ and O₂ gas."

I seem to have the same understanding as

Rebuilt

and then thought that the statement must be a typo in an otherwise well written and informative post.

"Given enough energy, the gasses will ionize,"

Would that energy not be equivalent to the energy required in an electrolytic process? Do you have any formulas regarding this. I can't find any information about the direct relation between the, by then critical heat of the steam and the energy needed to go that extra step.

My question is really: could not hydraulic pressure cause this heat and create this "true" phase change of water to H2+O2. What is a hell of lot of energy? I will try a few other searches on this but would appreciate if you could supply me with a link or published study. I would really like to follow this up and expand my knowledge and I think Rebuilt could rebuilt his understanding as well.

Thanks for the hint, Ky.

Sorry if I have taken up any of your time to find a link. I have found this (slaps his fore head the lazy bastard)

Hydrogen Evolution by Plasma Electrolysis in Aqueous Solution pdf

I will have a bit of reading to do. Very interesting, what a serendipitous world we live in, Ky.

Ky, can you post that as a link, or somehow provide a path to the file? It doesn't come out linked in my browser, or even as a valid file name (for one thing, no period before the "pdf"). I'd like to track that down and read it. (I know, slap MY forehead for being lazy, but you DID look it up. I presume you WANT us to benefit from your labor. Just say no, and I'll go find it.)

Thanks

Sorry Mica I just found it accidentally and cant remember from were. Here is a bit more info directly from the pdf

Hydrogen Evolution by Plasma Electrolysis in Aqueous SolutionTadahiko MIZUNO
, Tadashi AKIMOTO, Kazuhisa AZUMI1, Tadayoshi OHMORI2,Yoshiaki AOKI3 and Akito TAKAHASHI4Division of Quantum Energy Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan1Division of Molecular Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan2Catalysis Research Center, Hokkaido University, Kita 11 Nishi 10, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060, Japan3Center for Advanced Research of Energy Technology of Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan4Department of Nuclear Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan

(Received January 26, 2004; accepted October 4, 2004; published January 11, 2005)

Hope this helps, Ky.

Thanks, Ky. From that I think I can find it.

To be fair, I should say I liked all of Hypertherm's blog except for that one line I disagreed with. Thanks for the info. By the way, I didn't know how you could start the darn thing up.