Plasma Jets may Propel Aircraft

Some of the interesting details in the link below.

Plasma Jets May One Day Propel Aircraft
Plasma thrusters could help jet planes fly without fossil fuels
By Charles Q. Choi in Spectrum IEEE Energy

Jet planes may one day fly without fossil fuels by using plasma jets, new research from scientists in China suggests.

A variety of spacecraft, such as NASA’s Dawn space probe, generate plasma from gases such as xenon for propulsion. However, such thrusters exert only tiny propulsive forces, and so can find use only in outer space, in the absence of air friction.

Now researchers have created a prototype thruster capable of generating plasma jets with propulsive forces comparable to those from conventional jet engines, using only air and electricity.

An air compressor forces high-pressure air at a rate of 30 liters per minute into an ionization chamber in the device, which uses microwaves to convert this air stream into a plasma jet blasted out of a quartz tube. Plasma temperatures could exceed 1,000 °C.  ... "