ABSTRACT
The extremely high chemical activity of plasma is based on high and quite often a super-equilibrium concentration of active species. The active species generated in plasma include chemically aggressive atoms and radicals, charged particles – electron and ions, and excited atoms and molecules. Excited species can be subdivided into three groups: electronically excited atoms and molecules, vibrationally excited molecules, and rotationally excited molecules. Because of their long life with respect to radiation, the metastable electronically excited atoms and molecules are able to accumulate the necessary discharge energy and significantly contribute to the kinetics of different chemical reactions in plasma. The cross sections of the lowest resonances are presented in this table; after integration over electron energy distribution function, these usually contribute most to the vibrational excitation rate coefficient. High electron energies in electric discharges provide a high excitation rate of different electronically excited states of atoms and molecules by electron impact.
