The role of organic haze in Titan's atmospheric chemistry: I. Laboratory investigation on heterogeneous reaction of atomic hydrogen with Titan tholin

Abstract

In Titan's atmosphere consisting of N 2 and CH 4, large amounts of atomic hydrogen are produced by photochemical reactions during the formation of complex organics. This atomic hydrogen may undergo heterogeneous reactions with organic aerosol in the stratosphere and mesosphere of Titan. In order to investigate both the mechanisms and kinetics of the heterogeneous reactions, atomic deuterium is irradiated onto Titan tholin formed from N 2 and CH 4 gas mixtures at various surface-temperatures of the tholin ranging from 160 to 310 K. The combined analyses of the gas species and the exposed tholin indicate that the interaction mechanisms of atomic deuterium with the tholin are composed of three reactions; (a) abstraction of hydrogen from tholin resulting in gaseous HD formation (HD recombination), (b) addition of D atom into tholin (hydrogenation), and (c) removal of carbon and/or nitrogen (chemical erosion). The reaction probabilities of HD recombination and hydrogenation are obtained as η abst = 1.9 ( ± 0.6 ) × 10 −3 × exp ( − 300 / T ) and η hydro = 2.08 ( ± 0.64 ) × exp ( − 1000 / T ) , respectively. The chemical erosion process is very inefficient under the conditions of temperature range of Titan's stratosphere and mesosphere. Under Titan conditions, the rates of hydrogenation > HD recombination ≫ chemical erosion. Our measured HD recombination rate is about 10 times (with an uncertainty of a factor of 3–5) the prediction of previous theoretical model. These results imply that organic aerosol can remove atomic hydrogen efficiently from Titan's atmosphere through the heterogeneous reactions and that the presence of aerosol may affect the subsequent organic chemistry.