2. Chemical nature of air plasma at atmospheric pressure

2.1 Physico-chemical description

As previously mentioned, plasma is initiated by an electronic avalanche of highly energetic electrons. Their energy can exceed 10 eV, corresponding to a thermodynamic temperature in excess of 100,000 K ( $\text{1 eV}\iff 11600\text{K}$ ). These "hot" electrons are capable of transferring part of their energy to the gas molecules via inelastic collisions, leading to the formation of ions, excited species, or even to the breaking of certain bonds, thus creating highly reactive radical species which, when recombined, can lead to the formation of molecular or non-molecular, stable or metastable...