Formation of a hydrogen plasma from an incandescently heated hydrogen-catalyst gas mixture with an anomalous afterglow duration

We report the generation of a plasma of hydrogen and certain alkali ions as recorded via EUV spectroscopy and the hydrogen Balmer and alkali line emissions in the visible range. Typically, a hydrogen plasma is generated and the emission of extreme ultraviolet light from hydrogen gas is achieved via a discharge at high voltage, a high power inductively-coupled plasma, or a plasma created and heated to extreme temperatures by RF coupling (e.g. >106 K) with confinement provided by a toroidal magnetic field. The observed plasma formed at low temperatures (e.g. ≈103 K) from atomic hydrogen generated at a tungsten filament that heated a titanium dissociator and a catalyst comprising one of potassium, rubidium, cesium, and their carbonates and nitrates. These atoms and ions ionize to provide a catalyst with a net enthalpy of reaction of an integer multiple of the potential energy of atomic hydrogen (m×27.2 eV, m=integer) to within 0.17 eV and comprise only a single ionization in the case of a potassium or rubidium ion. Whereas, the chemically similar atoms of sodium and sodium and lithium carbonates and nitrates which do not ionize with these constraints caused no emission. To test the electric dependence of the emission, the weak electric field of about 1 V/cm was set and measured to be zero in <0.5×10−6 s. An anomalous afterglow duration of about 1–2 s was recorded in the case of potassium, rubidium, cesium, K2CO3, RbNO3, and CsNO3. Hydrogen line or alkali line emission was occurring even though the voltage between the heater wires was set to and measured to be zero. These atoms and ions ionize to provide a catalyst with a net enthalpy of reaction of an integer multiple of the potential energy of atomic hydrogen to within less than the thermal energies at ≈103 K and comprise only a single ionization in the case of a potassium or rubidium ion. Since the thermal decay time of the filament for dissociation of molecular hydrogen to atomic hydrogen was similar to the anomalous plasma afterglow duration, the emission was determined to be due to a reaction of atomic hydrogen with a catalyst that did not require the presence of an electric field to be functional.