Abstract
THE existence of an upper limiting pressure for explosion in thermal chain reactions has been explained in two ways. (1) The rate of branching of the chains, at the limit, is just sufficient to balance the rate of gas phase deactivation of the carriers ; (2) a sudden change in the nature of the absorbed layer of gas on the walls of the reaction tube leads to the ejection of atoms or molecules into the gas capable of starting the chain. In two recent letters1 to NATURE, the gas phase deactivation theory has been further extended to explain the occurrence of the upper limit. It may be of interest, therefore, to describe an experiment with phosphine-oxygen mixtures in which it can be shown that in the region above the upper limit there is a gradual decrease in the length of the reaction chains as the pressure is increased.
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