Gas-phase reactions of halogen species of atmospheric importance

A low-pressure discharge-flow technique, with various optical detection methods, has been used to determine bimolecular rate coefficients for a number of reactions in the gas-phase between OH radicals and organic halogen-containing molecules and between NO3 radicals and the iodine species I2 and I. These experiments have shown that: (1) the reaction of methyl iodide with OH accounts for approximately 2 percent of the removal of CH3I from the troposphere as compared with photolysis; (2) abstraction of I-atoms from a C-I bond by OH is probable in the gas-phase; (3) the halogen-containing anaesthetic substances halothane CF3CClBrH, enflurane CF2HOCF2CFClH, isoflurane CF2HOCClHCF3 and sevoflurane (CF3)2CHOCFH2 have significantly shorter tropospheric lifetimes than the fully halogenated CFCs and halons because of reaction with the OH radical and are thus unlikely to be transported up to the stratosphere where they could contribute to the depletion of ozone. Data obtained for reactions between OH and some 'CFC alternatives' along with measurements of the integrated absorption cross-sections of the compounds in the spectral region 800-1200 cm(exp -1) were used to calculate ozone depletion potentials (ODP) and greenhouse warming potentials relative to CFCl3 for each compound. The study of the reactions between OH and CF3CFBrH and CF2BrH was used to provide a useful first estimate of the environmental acceptability of these compounds in the context of their possible use as replacements for the conventional CFCs. A method was developed to provide a first estimate of the ODP of a halogenated alkane without use of a complicated (and expensive) computer modeling scheme. A reaction between molecular iodine and the nitrate radical in the gas-phase was discovered and the kinetics of this reaction have been studied. No temperature or pressure dependence was observed for the rate of reaction, the rate constant of which was found to be (1.5 +/- 0.5) x 10(exp -12)/cu cm/molecule/s. The reaction between I and NO3 was found to occur at a rate of about 60 percent of the hard-sphere collision frequency for the two species. The rate constant for reaction between I and NO3 was found to be (4.5 +/- 1.9) x 10(exp -10)/cu cm/molecule/s. An upper limit for the heat of formation of IONO2 of (21 +/- 3) kJmol(exp -1) was also derived.