On Dec 5, 2008, at 12:52 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Fri, 5 Dec 2008 12:44:40
-0900:
Hi,
[snip]
On Dec 5, 2008, at 11:55 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Fri, 5 Dec 2008 03:49:22
-0900:
Hi,
[snip]
Say, it may be that CH gas is being momentarily created in the
process.
[snip]
CH is a radical, and would not likely have a long life.
What makes you say CH is a radical? It is no more a radical than OH.
OH is also a radical, which by definition has at least 1 unpaired
valence
electron. Carbon has a valence of 4, and Hydrogen of 1, so CH has
three unpaired
electrons, OH has 1, since Oxygen has a valence of 2.
The first stable hydrocarbon is CH4 (methane).
Sorry, I was misusing the word radical. I thought you were
suggesting the CH would necessarily carry a net charge, like solvated
radicals do, and thus would lose its charge as soon as it contacted a
metal surface. I have no idea how stable CH is when deposited on a
Pt surface. Whatever formed there must easily be broken into CH+ by
the mass spectrometer. There is yet another prospect for heating the
Pt catalyst as the gas cools - the forming of organic molecules from
CH at the Pt surface. Since the deposit is black, it can't be CH4.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
