Edited by
H. Mauser
G. Gauglitz, Institut für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, D-72076, Tübingen, Germany
Description
Many books cover the determination of rate constants under different experimental conditions and different chemical composition of the
reaction mixture in their formal treatment of thermal kinetics. However, most textbooks are limited to simple mechanisms. In contrast,
analogous treatment of photochemical reactions is limited to the publication of special reactions and investigations. Therefore, this
book is aimed at providing an overall description of formal photokinetics covering a wider scope than the usual books on kinetics.
This
volume attempts to provide a concise treatment of both thermo- and photochemical reactions by means of generalised differential equations,
their set-up in matrix notation, and their solution by a formalism using numerical integration. At a first glance this approach might
be surprising. However, apart from the argument that the didactics of thermal reactions are easier to handle than those of kinetics,
the book provides additional reasons in support of this approach. Therefore, the formalism derived allows the evaluation of photochemical
reactions, which are superimposed thermal reactions taking into account that the amount of light absorbed varies during the reaction.
Because of this, any approximation, either by using total absorbance or negligible absorbance, will cause considerable errors even for
simple reactions. The approach chosen to transform the axis of the radiation time into a new variable that includes the photokinetic
factor proves that formal kinetics can be applied to thermal and photochemical reactions as well, and even allows the handling of solutions
that cannot be homogenised or solid samples in which the concentration varies locally. By using this approach to introduce partial photochemical
quantum yields even complex mechanisms can be determined quantitatively.
A large number of examples for different mechanisms and an
introduction to many spectroscopic and chromatographic methods suitable for photokinetic analyses are provided to enable the reader to
carry out a step-by-step evaluation of his own measurements. To reduce the number of formula in some chapters an appendix has been included
which contains a detailed description of the calculus of some essential examples. For the convenience of the reader the following has
been included:
• A large number of examples describing the use of formula
• A detailed description of the procedure for
applying photokinetics to complex consecutive photoreactions
• An Internet address where the reader can find a tutorial for this
procedure:
http://www.barolo.ipc.uni-tuebingen.de/tele/photokin/
• A simple macro to help in programming his own evaluation
procedure.
Included in series
Comprehensive Chemical Kinetics
Audience:
For researchers and professionals in industry, university and government institutions and advanced students.
