Lifetime of Charged Species in Irradiated Dielectric Liquids

The distribution of lifetimes of the charged species formed in cyclohexane by high-energy radiation is calculated using the experimental results on the number of these species reacting with solutes as a function of the concentration of the solutes. The time in which half of the ions recombine, when no reaction with a solute takes place, is 6 × 10−10 sec. Due to the fact that the diffusion coefficient of the negative entity in cyclohexane at room temperature is very large (2.5 × 10−4 cm2 sec−), scavenging of this entity increases the lifetime of the ions considerably. The effect of scavenging of the negative entity on the lifetime distribution is calculated. At large concentrations of α-chlorotoluene the lifetimes of the ions are increased by a factor of 16, approximately. The rate constant for the reaction of the negative entity with α-chlorotoluene at room temperature has been estimated at 4 × 10−11 cm3 sec−1.