On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Axil Axil <[email protected]> wrote:
> In the John Rohner cycle, he first excites the noble gases with a radio > frequency generator before the piston starts to move into compression. > Xenon is easy to excite because it binding energy is low: many orders of > magnitude lower than H2. > If so, then it would tend to move the xenon toward the center allowing the non-ionized helium to diffuse outward (which it will tend to do quickly due to its lower molecular weight). There would, of course, be a kind of "ionic wind" dragging the helium along with the xenon ions but it isn't clear to what the distribution of helium atoms would be although it is clear that the walls of the container would be protected from ions (remembering that the helium atoms aren't ionized).
