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Can any element be in the plasma state? |
Question Date: 2018-10-30 | | Answer 1:
A material is said to be in the plasma state
when electrons are able to move
freely between atoms in gas phase instead of being
local , or “stuck around” one
atom. This is usually achieved by heating the
material to high temperatures.
Generally, the thermal energy (the energy
from heat) must be higher than what
is called the ionization energy for the material
to become plasma. The
ionization energy is the amount of energy
needed to remove an electron from
an atom of the material, and it is different for
every element.
So theoretically,
any element could be in the plasma state if
you could get it to the temperature
where the thermal energy is more than the
ionization energy. However, in
practice some elements have very high ionization
energies which would make
nearly impossible to make into plasma.
| | Answer 2:
A
plasma is essentially a gas that is made
of charged particles, whereas the typical gas
phases comprises neutral particles. As long as you
can put sufficient energy into an element
to
remove the electrons from the atoms (or
molecules), you can make a plasma from a
substance. For example, you can make
plasma from a grape (if attempting, use
proper supervision/protection) by burning the
skin and heating the molecules.
Forming a plasma is not always just a matter of
heating the gas until the electrons come off
though. In particular, both temperature and
pressure affect the stable phase of a
substance, as expressed through
phase diagrams . For example, water
transitions from a solid to a liquid to a gas upon
heating at standard 1 atmosphere of pressure, but
water can form
more than 10 phases depending on the
temperature/pressure combination, and
CO2 transitions directly from solid to
gas ("dry ice"). So to make the plasma, you
might also have to increase or decrease the
pressure.
| | Answer 3:
Yes, any element could be in a plasma
state. The typical states of any element are
solid, liquid, and gas. If a gas is heated past
this point, it will eventually become a
plasma, which is basically a gas that conducts
electricity. So, at high enough temperatures,
any element could behave as a plasma.
| | Answer 4:
Yes, all elements can be ionized to become
plasmas.
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