Thermodynamic considerations and optical emission diagnostics of a N2/O2 mixture in an inductively coupled air plasma

Composition, monatomic spectral line intensities (Cu, O, N) and enthalpy are calculated for thermal and non-thermal equilibrium conditions in a plasma composed of three plasma gas mixtures of N2, O2 and an aerosol of copper sulfate in water. With these mixtures, the excitation and rotational temperatures are measured in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch using monatomic Cu spectral lines and CuO molecular spectra, respectively. It is shown that with the enthalpy it is possible to deduce the electronic translation temperature for other mixtures and that this ICP torch allows us to check the diatomic simulated spectra.