Experimental Simulation of Titan’s Atmosphere by Cold Plasmas

Abstract

We have used two different types of cold plasmas, corona and glowdischarges, to simulate the probable existence of elec. activityin the tropospheric methane clouds and to synthesized an analog ofthe stratospheric Titan's aerosols, resp. A wide variety of hydrocarbonsand nitriles were identified after a simulated troposphere was irradiatedby pos. and neg. corona discharges: the most abundant products aresatd. hydrocarbons and nitriles, esp. ethane, ethene, propane, n-butane,methanenitrile, and ethanenitrile. The energy yields of each oneof the identified products were calcd. The energy yields of pos.corona are one order of magnitude higher than those of neg. coronas.On the other hand, the complex refractive index parameters of theaerosol analogs were calcd. within a 200 to 900 nm interval, fromtransmittance and reflectance graphics. The refractive index (n)varies from 1.53 to 1.63 and the extinction coeff. (k) varies from2.62 * 10-4 to 2.87 * 10-2. [on SciFinder (R)]