CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF DIFFUSION FLAMES

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Abstract
In order to evaluate the rate constant for the reaction of atomic sodium with halides using the diffusion flame method, Hartel and Polanyi introduced three simplifying assumptions: that the mass flow of the carrier gas could be neglected, that there was a spherical distribution of sodium vapor in the reaction zone, and that the halide concentration was constant throughout the reaction zone. In an attempt to maintain the validity of the third assumption previous workers limited their experimental determinations to cases in which the collision yield was considerably less than unity. In the present contribution equations arc developed which remove this restriction and permit the evaluation of the rate constant without assuming a constant halide concentration. On carrying out the computation for a relatively slow reaction (Na + C2H5Cl) it was found that the error introduced by the third assumption was only of the order of 20%. The error for fast reactions would be considerably larger but can always be evaluated from the equations given. In some cases an approximate value of the error can be obtained without carrying out the complete computation.

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