Background: I'm world building an Earth-like world for a writing project. One of the goals of this project is to talk about changes in atmospheric chemistry across multiple scales ('nano'-scale through the entire atmospheric air column). My project has a scientist-type character to describe how atmospheric chemistry is affected by different processes. Example: Oxygen is released from leaves during the day, and carbon dioxide is released from leaves at night. Inversion layers occur regularly through the day-night cycle. Altitude impacts the density of air.
Here, I'm curious about the intersection of electricity and atmospheric chemical makeup.
Question: What chemical changes to atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen would/wouldn't occur in the presence of a wire carrying a current (not insulated)? (if any) Put another way, is the chemistry of the air around a live wire different in any way, shape, or form to the chemistry of the air around a wire with no current?
My internet research indicates a few possibilities but I'm not getting a firm sense of the reliability of the results. Example: Maybe ozone is produced by an electrical charge, or maybe it isn't - there seems to be conflicting ideas out there.
Here are some ideas I've seen:
charged particles in the air might naturally gravitate differently towards/away from an electrical current? This would be a change in the movement of existing molecules, perhaps physics rather than chemistry.
dinitrogen and dioxygen might become charged species (will these be positive or negative charges? Is the charge lost easily?
ozone might form?
Other species might form? nitrogen oxide species?
My best estimates for the current are:
~10000 volts and 120 milliamps in one portion of the writing project (electric fence); 120 volts and 20 amps in another portion (electrical cord.) I have some latitude here but those are ballpark estimates.
