KINETICS OF THE O(P-3) + C6H6 REACTION OVER A WIDE TEMPERATURE-RANGE

Rate coefficients for the O + C6H6 reaction have been measured by using the HTP (high-temperature photochemistry) technique with 193-nm laser photolysis of SO2 to generate ground-state oxygen atoms and atomic resonance fluorescence to monitor relative concentrations of the O atoms. The data cover the 600-1310 K range and are best represented by k(T) = 5.35 x 10(-11) exp(-2611 K/T) cm3 molecule-1 s-1 with a precision of better than +/- 10% and corresponding accuracy of +/- 23%, both at the 2-sigma statistical confidence level. The present data are in excellent agreement with those from several other investigations; together, they can be represented by k(T) = 4.0 x 10(-11) exp(-2349 K/T) cm3 molecule-1 s-1 for the 300-1450 K range, again with an estimated accuracy of about +/- 23%. The results indicate that the O atom addition mechanism dominates over this entire temperature range.