Discharge driven gold catalyst with application to a CO.sub.2 laser
First Claim
1. A CO2 laser device including a closed envelope containing a CO2 laser gas mixture and laser amplification volume, said amplification volume including an electrical discharge through said CO2 laser gas mixture, said discharge causing decomposition of CO2 in said mixture to form carbon monoxide, oxygen, and energetic forms of oxygen, the improved feature comprising:
- inside said envelope there is at least one surface coated with gold;
said gold surface is positioned and configured as to promote contact with both said carbon monoxide and said energetic forms of oxygen generated in said amplification volume for purposes of catalizing formation of CO2.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A device and process using a gold as a catalyst for oxidizing carbon monoxide to form CO2 at ambient temperatures. This has particular application to CO2 lasers. In one CO2 laser embodiment, gold is distributed on the walls of the discharge volume. The gold is divided to form electrically isolated islands to prevent interference with the discharge. Energetic forms of oxygen, such as atomic oxygen reacts with CO on the gold catalyst. In another embodiment, the gold catalyst is used in a convective flow laser.
45 Citations
11 Claims
-
1. A CO2 laser device including a closed envelope containing a CO2 laser gas mixture and laser amplification volume, said amplification volume including an electrical discharge through said CO2 laser gas mixture, said discharge causing decomposition of CO2 in said mixture to form carbon monoxide, oxygen, and energetic forms of oxygen, the improved feature comprising:
-
inside said envelope there is at least one surface coated with gold; said gold surface is positioned and configured as to promote contact with both said carbon monoxide and said energetic forms of oxygen generated in said amplification volume for purposes of catalizing formation of CO2. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
-
-
8. In a method for converting carbon monoxide and oxygen to CO2 the steps in no particular order comprising:
-
provide a means for forming at least one energetic form of oxygen; provide a gold coated surface positioned so as to promote contact with both said carbon monoxide and said energetic form of oxygen for the purposes of making catalytic formation of CO2. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11)
-
Specification