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Upper Pressure Limit in the Explosive Chain Reaction between Hydrogen and Oxygen

Abstract

WHEN the two pressure limits, between which the normally slow combination of hydrogen and oxygen, at, say, 540° C., becomes explosive, were first discovered, the existence of the lower limit was attributed to the deactivation of chain carriers at the wall of the vessel, and that of the upper limit to deactivation in the gas phase. Unless one or other of the deactivation processes is vigorous enough to balance a branching of the chains, explosion occurs. The theory of the lower limit has since been confirmed by detailed investigation, and shown to account for the facts more or less quantitatively. Theories which make the upper limit depend upon the vessel wall have also been suggested, but further experiments have shown that the assumption of some form of gas phase deactivation cannot be dispensed with.

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HINSHELWOOD, C., GRANT, G. Upper Pressure Limit in the Explosive Chain Reaction between Hydrogen and Oxygen. Nature 131, 361–362 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131361a0

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