Vibrational Relaxation of Oxygen by Methane

Abstract

Acoustic absorption measurements have been used to determine vibrational relaxation times in pure oxygen and in oxygen with up to 2% methane impurity at 25°C and 126°C. These measurements were undertaken to resolve the disagreement in the measurements reported by two other investigators of the same system. The results presented confirm the results reported by Schnaus [U. E. Schnaus, J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 37, 1–4 (1965)] and conflict with those reported by Parker and Swope [J. G. Parker and R. H. Swope, J. Chem. Phys. 43, 4427–4434 (1965)].