Four-atom bimolecular reactions with relevance in environmental chemistry:theoretical work

We review some of the work that we have been doing in the field of elementa ry reactive processes with interest in atmospheric chemistry and combustion processes. After a brief analysis of the relevant potential energy surface s, we report dynamics studies of four tetratomic chemical reactions: (1) O + O-3 --> O-2 + O-2; (2) H + O-3 --> O-2 + OH; (3) O + HO2 --> O-2 + OH; (4 ) M + HCN --> M + H + CN (M is a third body). Reaction (4) as well as the r everse of reactions (1)-(3) have so far been investigated by running classi cal trajectories, although reactions (1)-(3) have additionally been studied by quantum-mechanical reduced-dimensionality methods. The emphasis will be on the quantum versus classical comparison, and the agreement with the ava ilable kinetics measurements.