Formation of noble-gas hydrides and decay of solvated protons revisited: diffusion-controlled reactions and hydrogen atom losses in solid noble gases.
UV photolysis and annealing of C2H2/Xe, C2H2/Xe/Kr, and HBr/Xe matrices lead to complicated photochemical processes and reactions. The dominating products in these experiments are noble-gas hydrides with general formula HNgY (Ng = noble-gas atom, Y = electronegative fragment). We concentrate on distinguishing the local and global mobility and losses of H atoms, barriers of the reactions, and the decay of solvated protons. Different deposition temperatures change the amount of lattice imperfections and thus the amount of traps for H atoms. The averaged distance between reacting species influencing the reaction kinetics is controlled by varying the precursor concentration. A number of solid-state processes connected to the formation of noble-gas hydrides and decay of solvated protons are discussed using a simple kinetic model. The most efficient formation of noble-gas hydrides is connected with global (long-range) mobility of H atoms leading to the H + Xe + Y reaction. The highest concentration of noble-gas hydrides was obtained in matrices of highest optical quality, which probably have the lowest concentration of defects and H-atom losses. In matrices with high amount of geometrical imperfections, the product formation is inefficient and dominated by a local (short-range) process. The decay of solvated protons is rather local than a global process, which is different from the formation of noble-gas molecules. However, the present data do not allow distinguishing local proton and electron mobilities. Our previous results indicate that these are electrons which move to positively-charged centers and neutralize them. It is believed that the image obtained here for solid xenon is applicable to solid krypton whereas the case of argon deserves special attention.
Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, P.O. Box 55, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.
Hanna
H
Tanskanen
Leonid
L
Khriachtchev
Antti
A
Lignell
Markku
M
Räsänen
Susanna
S
Johansson
Ivan
I
Khyzhniy
Elena
E
Savchenko