Plasma-assisted ignition and combustion, widely applied in gas turbines, scramjets, and internal combustion engines, has been considered as a promising technique in shortening ignition delay time, improving combustion energy efficiency, and reducing emission. Nonequilibrium plasma can excite the gas molecules to higher energy states, directly dissociate or ionize the molecules and, thereby, has the potential to produce reactive species at residence time and location in a combustible mixture and then to efficiently accelerate the overall pyrolysis, oxidation, and ignition. Previous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of plasma-assisted combustion by using direct current, alternating currant, microwave, radio frequency, and pulsed nanosecond discharge (NSD). Due to the complicated interaction between plasma and combustion in different types of plasma, detailed plasma-combustion chemistry is still not well understood.
