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Gas-phase chemical kinetics

Three is the magic number

Nature Chemistry volume 9, pages 1038–1039 (2017)Cite this article

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Although predicted many years ago, chemically reactive termolecular reactions were thought to be unimportant in defining the behaviour of combustion systems. Now, calculations have shown that such reactions between radicals and long-lived bimolecular complexes can actually play an important role in hydrogen combustion.

It is of great importance to understand complicated gas-phase chemistry occurring in varied environments, such as the internal combustion engine (very hot and compressed) and dense interstellar molecular clouds (very cold and dilute). We can quantitatively describe the behaviour of reactive mixtures using chemical kinetic models that encapsulate our knowledge of the elementary reactions and transport processes of each species present in the gas. Of such models, the simplest is that of hydrogen combustion and it consists of a couple dozen elementary reactions. Hydrogen combustion chemistry has been extensively studied and it was assumed the model was approaching completeness1,2. Now in Nature Chemistry, Michael Burke and Stephen Klippenstein3 have demonstrated that another class of reactions may significantly contribute to the chemistry of hydrogen combustion, a suggestion that may also have broad implications for other fuels and chemical processes.

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Figure 1: A schematic diagram showing the kinetic processes involving the reaction of the transient HO2** species.

References

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  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Boulder, 215 UCB Boulder, 80309-0215, Colorado, USA

    Rex T. Skodje

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  1. Rex T. Skodje
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Correspondence to Rex T. Skodje.

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Skodje, R. Three is the magic number. Nature Chem 9, 1038–1039 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2880

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