Acceleration of the Reaction OH plus CO → H CO2 by Vibrational Excitation of OH

The collision complex formed from a vibrationally excited reactant undergoes redissociation to the reactant, intramolecular vibrational relaxation (randomization of vibrational energy), or chemical reaction to the products. If attractive interaction between the reactants is large, efficient vibrational relaxation in the complex prevents redissociation to the reactants with the initial vibrational energy, and the complex decomposes to the reactants with low vibrational energy or converts to the products. In this paper, we have studied the branching ratios between the intramolecular vibrational relaxation and chemical reaction of an adduct HO(v)-CO formed from OH(X-2 Pi(i)) in different vibrational levels v = 0-4 and CO. OH(v = 0-4) generated in a gaseous mixture of O-3/H-2/CO/He irradiated at 266 nm was detected with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) via the A(2)Sigma(+) - X-2 Pi(i); transition, and H atoms were probed by the two-photon excited LIP technique. From the kinetic analysis of the time-resolved LIF intensities of OH(v) and H, we have found that the intramolecular vibrational relaxation is mainly governed by a single quantum change, HO(v)-CO -> HO (v-1)-CO, followed by redissociation to OH(v-1) and CO. With the vibrational quantum number v, chemical process from the adduct to H + CO2 is accelerated, and vibrational relaxation is decelerated. The countertrend is elucidated by the competition between chemical reaction and vibrational relaxation in the adduct HOCO.