KINETICS OF CH RADICAL REACTIONS IMPORTANT TO HYDROCARBON COMBUSTION SYSTEMS.

It is demonstrated that the CH radical can be generated with sufficiently high concentrations by means of the multiphoton dissociation of CHBr//3 at 193 nm for kinetic measurements. The formation and decay of the CH radical was monitored by the laser-induced fluorescence technique using the (A**2 DELTA implied by X**2 pi ) transition at 430 nm. Several rate constants for the reactions relevant to high temperature hydrocarbon combustion have been measured at room temperature. One of the key reactions, CH plus N//2, has been shown to be pressure-dependent, presumably due to the production of the CHN//2 radical at room temperature.