Recombination Chemistry in CO2 Atmospheres

Details Recombination Chemistry in CO2 Atmospheres Recombination Chemistry in CO2 Atmospheres

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.6224s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #62.24

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Homogeneous three-body gas-phase recombination of O + CO is too slow a process to contribute significantly to stabilization of a CO2 atmosphere, and for many years different schemes have been invoked to account for the fact that there are very low concentrations of CO and O2 in the atmospheres of Mars and Venus. Slanger et al. [2006] have recently suggested that the predominant emitter in the visible nightglow of Venus and presumably Mars the v = 0 level of the O2 (c1Σu-) state could react with CO to reform CO2, in a scheme that substitutes O + O over O + CO as a key recombination step. The atomic product would be O(1D) and/or O(1S), the latter now known to have variable but significant intensity at Venus [Slanger et al., 2006]. Measurements have been carried out on the collisional removal of O2 in vibrationally excited levels (v = 9-11) of the c1Σu- state with different colliders O2, CO, CO2, N2. Rate coefficients are quite large in all cases, generally exceeding 10-11 cm3s-1, but preliminary measurements with CO indicate that a substantial fraction of the O2(c,v) removal rate is associated with cascading to lower vibrational levels. However, the question must be focused on the v = 0 level, where it remains to be determined whether interaction with CO is sufficiently faster (3-4 orders of magnitude) than the slow O2(c1Σu-, v = 0) interaction with CO2 to make the proposed reaction important. Other energetic O2 reactants, cf. ground-state O2 in high vibrational levels, might also play a role in CO2 stabilization.
Slanger, T. G.; Huestis, D. L.; Cosby, P.C.; Chanover, N. J.; Bida, T. A. Icarus 2006, 182, 1.
Support for this work comes from the NASA Planetary Atmospheres program, as well as the NSF REU program.

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