Ionic Collision Processes in Gaseous N2O

Ionic collision processes have been studied in N2O by mass spectrometric techniques with particular emphasis on the state of excitation of the N2O+ ion. Evidence is presented for the contention that electrons of energies ≥17 eV on collision with N2O molecules produce long-lived excited N2O+ ions which are capable of the reactions N2O++N2O→ NO++N+N2O,N2O++N2O→ O++N2+N2Owithout significant conversion of translational to internal energy. For electrons with energy ≥17 eV at least 1% of the N2O+ ions appear to have internal energy ≥2.4 eV. It is well known that excited N2O+ ions are involved in the unimolecular predissociation N2O+→ NO++N. However the abundance of these ions which survive for times appropriate to the collision experiments described here is only about 0.01%. In collision of Ar+ or N2+ with N2O simple charge transfer predominates over dissociative reactions even though sufficient energy is available for dissociation to occur.