Decay Mechanism of NO3(•) Radical in Highly Concentrated Nitrate and Nitric Acidic Solutions in the Absence and Presence of Hydrazine.

The decay mechanism of NO3(•) has been determined through a combination of experiment and calculation for 7 mol dm(-3) solutions of deaerated aqueous LiNO3 and HNO3, in the absence and presence of hydrazine (N2H4, N2H5(+), and N2H6(2+)). In the absence of hydrazine, the predominant NO3(•) decay pathways are strongly dependent upon the pH of the solution. For neat, neutral pH LiNO3 solutions (7 mol dm(-3)), NO3(•) produced by the pulse is fully consumed within 160 μs by OH(•) (37%), H2O (29%), NO2(-) (17%), and NO2 (17%). For acidic HNO3 solutions (7 mol dm(-3)), radiolytically produced NO3(•) is predominantly consumed within 1 ms by HNO2 (15%) and NO2 (80%). Intervening formulations exhibit the mechanistic transition from neat LiNO3 to neat HNO3. In highly acidic nitric acid solution, hydrazine exists mainly as N2H5(+) and N2H6(2+), both of which rapidly consume NO3(•) in addition to other decay mechanisms, with rate constants of 2.9 (±0.9) × 10(7) and 1.3 (±0.3) × 10(6) dm(3) mol(-1) s(-1), respectively.