Carbon fibre plasma reactor enables extreme synthesis without compromise

Producing ultrahigh melting point ceramics and alloys for engine and rocket body applications often requires temperatures that are not only ultrahigh but sustained and ideally uniform. A new reactor claims to be able to meet these exacting standards with a setup based on carbon fibres that creates plasmas with temperatures up to 8000K over several cubic centimetres that are also stable for 10 minutes.

The stable plasmas familiar in neon signs and televisions exploit very low pressures, where an applied voltage strips electrons from a gas, which then hurtle towards the positive electrode. However, the low mass of electrons means that even at high velocities they don’t have the momentum to affect chemical reactions. As the velocity of the ions left behind is barely changed, the temperature of the gas itself remains low.