Abstract
IN flash photolysis experiments involving methyl nitrite, transient absorption bands at 1999, 2036 and 2064 Å were seen1 faintly at 50 µsec, increasing in intensity slowly to a maximum at 2.5 msec and almost disappearing by 25 msec. These bands did not appear for any other nitrite tested. The reasons1 for these bands being attributed to CH3O· (being produced originally in a metastable excited state) were that this free radical, together with NO·, was expected to result from the alkyl nitrites which are in fact accepted sources of RO· (despite the early investigations2 in which the primary photochemical process in CH3ONO was deduced to be dissociation to the molecules HNO and H2CO), the observation of the expected partner fragment NO at the smallest delay times (50 µsec), and the virtual elimination of HNO, HCO, and formaldehyde in an excited state as the appropriate carrier.
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OGILVIE, J. Electronic Absorption Spectrum of the CH3O-radical. Nature 208, 1315 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/2081315a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2081315a0
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