Sulfur compounds have been observed in a number of planetary atmospheres throughout our solar system. While our current understanding of sulfur chemistry explains much of what we observe in Earth’s atmosphere, several discrepancies between modeling and observations of the Venusian atmosphere show there are still problems in our fundamental understanding of sulfur chemistry. Recent work in the Vaida lab has shown that electronically excited sulfur dioxide is incredibly reactive with a wide range of molecules including saturated alkanes. We have undertake a study to measure the rate constants for the reaction of electronically excited sulfur dioxide in the forbidden triplet state with a series of alkanes ranging from methane to n-nonane. We will present on the effect of chain length on the reaction rate and the effect of branched and ringed structures of alkanes on reaction with electronically excited sulfur dioxide.<br/>

Reaction rates and mechanism for the reaction of electronically excited sulfur dioxide with alkanes

255th National Meeting (2018)

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