Interpretation of the Kinetics of Mercury Alkyl Pyrolysis

Abstract

The high frequency factors observed for the thermal decomposition of some mercury dialkyls are shown to be consistent with the hypothesis that the primary step is a fission into three fragments rather than two; this mechanism is possible because of an almost unique thermochemical property of the mercury alkyl system and, within the limitations of the simple approximation used, is not incompatible with the concept of localization of activation energy within the critical bonds.