Abstract The quality of short-wave radio communication in the ionosphere depends largely on the state of the ionosphere, but it is uncontrollable and unreliable. The release of gaseous samarium into the ionospheric space can form high-density plasma clouds, which is of great significance for improving the quality of shortwave radio communication. The high temperature and high heat released by the self-propagation high-temperature synthesis reaction can effectively heat and vaporize the samarium. At the same time, this method can effectively avoid the adverse impact of the reaction of individual components of the reaction material on the ionization efficiency of samarium, and greatly improve the ionization efficiency of the samarium. Therefore, self-propagation high-temperature synthesis is an important method for heating and vaporizing samarium. To study the ignition model of self-propagation high-temperature synthesis system for heating and vaporizing samarium, and to design and control the ignition process is the premise for heating and vaporizing samarium. Based on the theory of chemical reaction and heat conduction, the electrothermal ignition process is studied in detail. By analyzing the change of energy distribution in the ignition process, a theoretical model of ignition under the electric energy heating mode is proposed, and a theoretical equation for calculating the ignition time is derived. The model can be used to design and control the ignition system and explain many phenomena in the ignition process. In addition, the electrothermal ignition test was carried out for heating and vaporizing samarium in the self-propagation high-temperature synthesis system to obtain the ignition power and ignition time of different reaction systems under different samarium content and porosity, and further analyze the universality of the calculation model. The results show that the test results are in good agreement with the theoretical calculation results, and the validity of the model is verified, which provides an important support for the design of self-propagation high-temperature synthesis reaction heating and vaporizing samarium ignition system.