The Nature of Active Nitrogen

It is shown that the first bimolecular process found exprimentally in the decay of the nitrogen afterglow requires oxygen as a catalyst and draws both active bodies from a common population. An activation energy of 900 cm -1 is necessary for this afterglow process. The second bimolecular process involves two active bodies possessing monomolecular decays and drawn from different populations. Negligible activation energy is required for this afterglow process. This process is quenched by oxygen and requires a minute impurity believed to be hydrogen. The final monomolecular decay shows the usual diffusion-collision pressure dependence at higher temperatures and effectively diffusion dependence only at lower temperatures. The effects of diffusion are much reduced by a monomolecular layer of oxygen on the walls. An aggregate possessing a dissociation energy of 5600 cm -1 is involved in the final afterglow process. Reasons are given for believing that the first bimolecular process is recombination of nitrogen atoms in the presence of an oxygen molecular catalyst of the order of a few parts per million and that the second process is a collision of two different vibrationally excited ground states of the nitrogen molecule with a molecular hydrogen catalyst of the order of a few parts per million.