Book Description

A series of measurements on free radicals produced by chemical reaction and photodissociation has been made, using laser methods for formation and in some cases, detection. Highly exothermic reactions between oxygen atoms and both CF2 and CHF radicals have been studied by time resolved Fourier transform infrared emission spectroscopy, yielding information on the reaction pathway, emitting products, kinetics of formation and quenching, and the nascent vibrational distributions. Emitting species hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide have been identified in these systems. In a second study, the quantum state distributions and polarisations of OH and OD(A2sigma+) products of the two photon dissociation of H2O and D2O at 266 nm have been measured. Results show the importance of long lived trajectories in determining the photodissociation dynamics, but the unexpected observation of low fragment alignment is unable to clarify the two photon state responsible for the excitation step. A third project has concentrated on measurements of radiative lifetimes of the CF(A2 sigma +) state, with new information on the A-X spectroscopy and on the O + CF(X2II) reaction rate constant found. Finally, preliminary measurements on the nascent CO rational distribution in the O + CS reaction is reported, and some additional experiments concerning the formation of carbene radicals in liquid phase enzyme cleavage studies are described. Carbon difluoride, Water, Deuterium. (MJM).