Reactive scattering of halogen molecules. [Angular and velocity distributions, stabilities 6. 8 to 17. 7 kcal/mole, FORTRAN

Abstract

A study of the endoergic, bimolecular reactions of F/sub 2/ with I/sub 2/, ICl, and HI in a crossed molecular beam experiment is described. The trihalogens IIF, ClIF, and HIF were directly observed as the products of these reactions. At high collision energies a second reactive channel producing IF becomes important. Product angular and velocity distributions show that this IF does not result from a four-center exchange reaction. Measured threshold energies for the formation of IIF, ClIF, and HIF yield lower bounds to the stabilities of these molecules, with respect to the separated atoms, of 69, 81, and 96 kcal/mole, respectively. Analysis of product center-of-mass angular distributions indicates that a slightly nonlinear approach is most effective in bringing about reaction to form the stable triatomic radical. Also described is a crossed molecular beam study of the Cl + Br/sub 2/ ..-->.. BrCl + Br reaction at collision energies from 6.8 to 17.7 kcal/mole. The results indicate that this reaction has the characteristics of an exoergic reaction on an attractive potential energy surface with early energy release. Reagent translational energy is very efficiently channeled into product internal energy. At high collision energy the reaction appears to approach the spectator stripping limit.more » Finally, a series of computer programs which can be used to carry out the requisite data analysis for crossed molecular beam reactive scattering experiments are described. These programs recover the reactive scattering center-of-mass flux distribution from the measured angular and velocity distributions of the products.« less