The kinetics of the reaction between hydrogen and nitrous oxide III—Effect of oxygen
One of the most striking dissimilarities between the hydrogen-oxygen and hydrogen-nitrous oxide reactions is the absence in the latter of sharp explosion limits, a feature characteristic of the former. Another important difference is that propagation of chains in the H 2 -N 2 O mixtures is rather less easy than in H 2 -O 2 , for the photochemical chain length is smaller for H 2 -N 2 O than for H 2 -O 2 at the same temperatures and pressures (see below). It has, however been postulated that the carriers in the two reactions are identical and that at least one step, viz., OH+H 2 →H 2 O+H, is common to both reactions. The differences in the propagation factors would therefore be due to these reactions H+N 2 O=OH+N 2 and H+H 2 +O 2 = OH+H 2 O, or H+O 2 = HO 2 HO 2 +H 2 = OH + H 2 O. It may be anticipated that termination processes will be somewhat similar, and consequently the observed differences in the thermal reactions will also be partly due to initiation reactions.