Hydrogenation and Deuteration of C2H2 and C2H4 on Cold Grains: A Clue to the Formation Mechanism of C2H6 with Astronomical Interest

We quantitatively investigated the hydrogen addition reactions of acetylene (C2H2) and ethylene (C2H4) on amorphous solid water (ASW) at 10 and 20 K relevant to the formation of ethane (C2H6) on interstellar icy grains. We found that the ASW surface enhances the reaction rates for C2H2 and C2H4 by approximately a factor of 2 compared to those on the pure- solid C2H2 and C2H4 at 10 K, probably due to an increase in the sticking coefficient and adsorption energy of the H atoms on ASW. In contrast to the previous proposal that the hydrogenation rate of C2H4 is orders of magnitude larger than that of C2H2, the present results show that the difference in hydrogenation rates of C2H2 and C2H4 is only within a factor of 3 on both the surfaces of pure solids and ASW. In addition, we found the small kinetic isotope effect for hydrogenation/deuteration of C2H2 and C2H4 at 10 K, despite the requirement of quantum tunneling. At 20 K, the reaction rate of deuteration becomes even larger than that of hydrogenation. These unusual isotope effects might originate from a slightly larger number density of D atoms than H atoms on ASW at 20 K. The hydrogenation of C2H2 is four times faster than CO hydrogenation and can produce C2H6 efficiently through C2H4 even in the environment of a dark molecular cloud.