Abstract: In automobiles, for example, the exhaust fumes must pass through a plasma reactor operating by the principle of dielectrically inhibited ("silent") discharge, consisting of an arrangement of flat plates with alternating metallic and dielectric layers, whereby a plurality of adjacent discharge paths in parallel in the flow direction are formed. According to the invention, the discharge paths border on a single metallic electrode surface or layer (62, 72) and the electric power is supplied (58, 59) from two different sides with the metallic layers (62, 72) having alternating polarities.

Abstract: The invention relates to a gas discharge switch with a low-pressure gas discharge segment, which is provided with an anode and at least one main cathode, and arranged in an ionizable working gas. It is provided with a control unit for flow discharge, which contains a cathode. For the working gas, a gas storage with automatic pressure control is provided. According to the invention, the energy of glow discharge is provided as the setting value for regulating the pressure of the working gas. With this module (30), consisting of the cathode (31) for glow discharge with the gas storage (32), the pressure of the working gas, preferably hydrogen, remains at least approximately constant over a long period of time, in a closed system of this so-called pseudo-spark switch.