Jordy Bouwman
University of California, Berkeley
Abstract
Reactions between radicals (e.g. C2H) and unsaturated hydrocarbons are considered to be vital steps in molecular growth, ultimately leading to the formation of the yellow haze that shrouds Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Low temperature product branching ratios of radical-neutral reactions serve as pivotal input for models that attempt to simulate the chemistry in Titan’s cold atmosphere. Up to now, no measurements of product branching ratios at low temperature are available in the literature. At the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a new synchrotron based apparatus has been developed that combines a Laval expansion to study low temperature chemical reactions with mass spectrometry of the product species. Resulting photoionization spectra are used to derive—for the first time—low temperature branching ratios for a set of fundamental, key reactions. The latest results on a set of alkenes reacting with C2H will be presented and the implications to Titan’s chemistry will be highlighted.