The Nature of Gas Ions

Abstract

The mass of gas ions formed in a glow discharge and aged up to ${10}^5$ impacts was determined by a Dempster type of mass-spectrograph. In hydrogen it is found that the primary ion, ${\mathrm{H}}_2^{+}$, changes within a few thousand collisions to ${\mathrm{H}}_3^{+}$, together with small quantities of ${\mathrm{H}}^{+}$. The nitrogen primary ions, ${\mathrm{N}}^{+}$ and ${\mathrm{N}}_2^{+}$, attach to neutral molecules in about ${10}^5$ impacts to form ${\mathrm{N}}_3^{+}$ and ${\mathrm{N}}_4^{+}$. In pure oxygen the ions consist almost entirely of ${\mathrm{O}}_2^{+}$ with small quantities of ${\mathrm{O}}^{+}$. Air ions include all possible nitrogen and oxygen ions, the aged air ions consisting principally of ${\mathrm{N}}_3^{+}$, ${\mathrm{N}}_4^{+}$ and ${\mathrm{O}}_2^{+}$ together with the oxides of nitrogen. Charges are transferred from ${\mathrm{O}}_2^{+}$ to NO, N${\mathrm{O}}_2$ and ${\mathrm{N}}_2$O. Water vapor is particularly active in acquiring a charge by transfer and ${\mathrm{H}}_2$ ${\mathrm{O}}^{+}$ ions may be most numerous in apparatus not baked out. No heavier clusters than ${\mathrm{N}}_4^{+}$ were observed. No negative ions were observed. Some conclusions published in earlier work must be revised.