Plasma parameters and chemical kinetics of an HCl DC glow discharge

The investigations of plasma parameters and active particles kinetics in an HCl DC glow discharge system were carried out. The investigation combines plasma diagnostics by electric probes and plasma modeling based on the self-consistent solution of Boltzmann kinetic equation and the balance equation of chemical kinetic for neutral and charged particles. It was shown that the direct electron impact dissociation of the HCl molecules represents the main mechanism for the formation of the Cl and H atoms while the total balances for all kinds of neutral particles are noticeably influenced by the volume atom–molecular reactions. The analysis of the vibrational kinetics shows low population of the vibrational energy levels for HCl molecules, but the role of the HClV>0 in the negative ions formation process cannot be neglected. The assumption of the Eley-Rideal recombination kinetics for both chlorine and hydrogen atoms provides a good agreement between the calculated and experimental values of reduced electric field (E/N) and the total flux of positive ions.