Dissociation of Propylene Excited by the Impact of Low-Energy Electrons in the Gas Phase

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/j150620a021

Dissociation of gaseous propylene excited by the impact of low-energy electrons was investigated by using tritium β-rays in the presence of applied electric fields.The yields of C₁-C₆ hydrocarbon products are reported depending on the applied potential.To achieve a material balance for the free-radical processes, we performed the experiments at a temperature of 195 K.Decomposition of propylene excited by the electrons having energy below the ionization potential involves mainly either C-H (yielding H + C3H5) or C-C (yielding C2H3 + CH3) bond rupture.The contribution of the latter increases with increasing eletron energy.The experimental results agree quite well with RRKM calculations concerning vibrationally excited propylene molecules in the ground state.In radiolysis in the absence of electric fields the excited molecules appear to have energies higher than, or close to, the ionization threshold.