The gas‐phase reaction of hydrazine and ozone: A nonphotolytic source of OH radicals for measurement of relative OH radical rate constants

Abstract

AbstractThe homogeneous gas‐phase reaction of N2H4 with O3 in air atmospheric pressure has been used to generate OH radicals in the dark, allowing the determination of relative OH radical rate constants for compounds which photolyze rapidly. This technique was first validated by determining the OH radical rate constant ratios for n‐butane/cyclohexane and methanol/dimethyl ether, both of which are in excellent agreement with the literature values. The rate constant for the reaction of OH radicals with methyl nitrite at 300 ± 3 K was then determined relative to those for the reaction of OH radicals with n‐hexane and dimethyl ether. The resulting rate constant of 1.8 × 10−13 cm3/molecule·s is about seven times lower than those of previous measurements which employed a different nonphotolytic relative rate method.