Production of nitric monoxide using pulsed discharges for a medical application

Nitric monoxide (NO) is widely used in medical treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The production of NO is of interest to the medical community. In the present work, NO is generated by pulsed discharges between two rod electrodes in a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. An arc discharge having a temperature of about 10000 K was produced, which was sufficient to generate NO. Some of the important parameters affecting the production of NO have been investigated. These include the percentage of O/sub 2/ (6-94%) in the mixture of Na and O/sub 2/, the energy of the discharge (0.5-12 J/pulse), the pulse repetition rate (0.54.5 pps) and the flow rate (1.35-5.4 l/min) of the gas mixture. NO/sub 2/ produced in the discharge was successfully changed to NO using a heated molybdenum tube, NO/sub 2/ must be extracted from the gas before clinical inhalation. The concentration of ozone was completely eliminated by bubbling the gas mixture through water. A maximum of NO and a minimum of NO/sub 2/ concentrations were generated when the proportion of O/sub 2/ in the gas mixture was in the range of 20-27%. The concentrations of NO and NO/sub 2/ increased with increasing pulse repetition rate and with decreasing flow rate of the mixture. In all cases, No/sub 2/ was effectively removed using a heated molybdenum tube.