Molecular-Beam Kinetics. II. Magnetic Deflection Analysis of Reactions of Li with NO2, CH3NO2, SF6, CCl4, and CH3I

Abstract

Thermal energy crossed-molecular-beam studies have been made of the reactions of Li with NO2, CH3NO2, SF6, CCl4, and CH3I. An inhomogeneous deflecting magnet between the collision zone and detector was used to distinguish elastic scattering of Li from reactive scattering of LiZ. The total reaction cross sections and the reactive attenuations of the wide-angle Li nonreactive scattering for these gases are considerably smaller than are the corresponding features previously reported for the Li+XY(XY is Cl2, Br2, and ClI) reactions. Interesting differences are observed in the LiZ center-of-mass (c.m.) product angular distributions for the five gases studied here. The LiO product of the NO2 reaction is more sharply forward peaked in the direction of the incoming Li atom than are the corresponding LiX products of the Li+XY reactions. The LiNO2 and LiF products of the CH3NO2 and SF6 reactions exhibit very broad, almost isotropic c.m. angular distributions. The LiCl and LiI products of the CCl4 and CH3I reactions are predominantly scattered into the backward hemisphere in the c.m. coordinate system. The features of the NO2 reaction are discussed in terms of the electron transfer mechanism which was originally advanced to account for the features of the reactions of the alkali atoms with the halogen molecules.