Radiolysis of the alkali nitrates

Abstract

The use of a combination of analytical procedures shows that in the radiolysed alkali metal nitrates (i) substantial amounts of oxidising species other than NO–2 are formed: (ii) previous measurements considerably underestimate G–NO–3 and (iii) 77 K irradiated NaNO3 undergoes a rapid annealing process on warming to room temperature.A model for the radiolytic processes is developed from the data.