Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.108, No.32, 6704-6708, 2004
Flowing afterglow studies of the temperature dependencies for dissociative recombination of O-2(+), CH5+, C2H5+, and C6H7+ with electrons
A temperature-variable flowing afterglow with an electrostatic Langmuir probe has been used to determine the rate coefficients, alpha(e), for the recombination of a series of molecular ions with electrons. The alpha(e) for O-2(+), CH5+, C2H5+, and C6H7+ have been determined at temperatures ranging from 80 to 600 K. Data for O-2(+) over the temperature range of 100-500 K establish a single-power law dependence, which is consistent with previous data in this temperature range. The hydrocarbon data show that the alpha(e) are large at room temperature, being 1.1 X 10(-6), 1.2 x 10(-6), and 2.4 x 10(-6) cm(3) s(-1) for CH5+, C2H5+, and C6H7+, respectively, and exhibit significant dependencies on temperature consistent with theoretical models based on the direct and indirect mechanisms. The change between these two dependencies occurs at a temperature of similar to300 K. The dissociative recombination of these ions is significant to molecular synthesis in interstellar clouds and the ionosphere of Titan, which is to be probed by the NASA Huygens-Cassini spacecraft that reaches the Saturnian system in July 2004. The relevance of the present data to these media is briefly discussed.