Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Gas phase reactions of C/sup +/ with small neutral molecules

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:6366612
The crossed beam technique was employed to study the reaction of C/sup +/ with neutral molecules at selected collision energies. Angular and translational energy distributions of products were measured and these data used to determine the reaction mechanism. The disposition of available energy into product degrees of freedom was inferred from the data. Ground state C/sup +/ (/sup 2/P) ions react with water to form HCO/sup +/ while the metastable carbon ions (/sup 4/P) react to yield charge transfer products. Both reactions occur by direct mechanisms. The hydride abstraction reactions of C/sup +/ with ethane, methane, and methanol are direct processes. Of these three reactions, only the methane reaction yields product ions forward scattered with respect to the ion beam. The formation of a long-lived complex occurs for large impact parameter collisions in the C/sup +/ methane experiment and decay of this complex forms C/sub 2/H/sub 3//sup +/ and C/sub 2/H/sub 2//sup +/ products. Effective competition from these channels restricts large impact parameter collisions from forming hydride abstraction products so that only low impact parameter collisions which create recoiling products can form CH/sub 3//sup +/. The C/sub 3/H/sub 3//sup +/ product of the C/sup +/ ethane reactions, the (H/sub 2/NC/sup +/) and (HCN/sup +/) products of the C/sup +/ ammonia reaction and the C/sub 2/H/sub 2//sup +/ and C/sub 2/H/sub 3//sup +/ products of the C/sup +/ methane reaction appear to be formed by decay of a long-lived complex prior to energy randomization.
Research Organization:
Rochester Univ., NY (USA)
OSTI ID:
6366612
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English