Carbon kinetic isotope effect in the oxidation of methane by hydroxyl

Abstract

Abstract The carbon kinetic isotope effect in the reaction of CH 4 with OH has an experimentally measured value of 1.003. The measurement was performed using a static system in which the source of OH was the gas‐phase photolysis of H 2 O 2 with ultraviolet light produced by a high‐pressure mercury arc lamp. Implications for the tropospheric cycle of CH 4 are considered briefly.