Overview on the Development of Chambers for the Study of Atmospheric Chemical Processes

摘要

Photoreactors have been used for quite some time by scientists to study organic photochemistry (Bayes, Blacet, Calvert, Gunning, Hammond, Heicklen, Leighton, Okabe, Noyes, Steacy, and others mentioned in the text book by Calvert and Pitts, 1966). In industry, the photolytic initiation of product synthesis has been known since the beginning of the last century. A large chamber, known as the "Grosse Bonner Kugel" (Groth et al., 1972), was built in Bonn between 1966 and 1968; its conception was initiated by Groth and Harteck to study air glow reactions at the low pressures prevailing in the upper atmosphere. Afterwards, the chamber was also used to study reactions of tropospheric interest, but the knowledge of tropospheric chemistry at that time was very basic. Photolytic radical sources could not be applied in this reactor, and the radicals had to be introduced from the exterior using discharge flow techniques. Details of the chamber in Bonn will be discussed later in the article.