Abstract
The electron–atom interaction is considered in dense partially ionized plasmas. The separable potential is constructed from scattering data using effective radius theory. Parameters of the interaction potential were obtained from phase shifts, scattering length and effective radius. The binding energy of the electron in the H − ion is determined for the singlet channel on the basis of the reconstructed separable potential. In dense plasmas, the influence of the Pauli exclusion principle on the phase shifts and the binding energy is considered. Due to the Pauli blocking, the binding energy vanishes at the Mott density. At that density the behavior of the phase shifts is drastically changed. This leads to modifications of macroscopic properties such as composition and transport coefficients.