Radical Production in the Radiolysis of the Hydrocarbons

Abstract

Previously (1), in a discussion of detailed experiments on the radiation-induced reaction between iodine and heptane, we have proposed the use of iodine for the quantitative determination of radical production in hydrocarbon radiolysis. It was shown that the yield of iodine disappearance in air-free iodine-heptane solutions is independent of concentration in the range 0.0001 to 0.0006 M and also independent of temperature and of radiation intensity. The disappearance of iodine was ascribed to reaction with free radicals. The radical yield measured by the uptake of iodine, G(RI) = 6.8 radicals per 100 ev, was found to be in approximate agreement with the value obtained by Chapiro et al. (2, 3), who used diphenylpicrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH) as the radical detector. The present work extends these iodine absorption studies to other hydrocarbons.