Kinetic theory of transport processes in partially ionized reactive plasma, I: General transport equations

•We consider multicomponent partially ionized plasma in a magnetic field.•We account for both elastic, inelastic and chemical interactions of particles.•Using the Grad’s method, we obtain the system of transport equations for plasma.•We discuss further applications of the obtained system of transport equations.

In this paper we derive the set of general transport equations for multicomponent partially ionized reactive plasma in the presence of electric and magnetic fields taking into account the internal degrees of freedom and electronic excitation of plasma particles. Our starting point is a generalized Boltzmann equation with the collision integral in the Wang-Chang and Uhlenbeck form and a reactive collision integral. We obtain a set of conservation equations for such plasma and employ a linearized variant of Grad’s moment method to derive the system of moment (or transport) equations for the plasma species nonequilibrium parameters. Full and reduced transport equations, resulting from the linearized system of moment equations, are presented, which can be used to obtain transport relations and expressions for transport coefficients of electrons and heavy plasma particles (molecules, atoms and ions) in partially ionized reactive plasma.