Ming-Wei's HW#02 - a brief summary about the articles I am summarizing

The topic I chose for assignment this quarter is about the research of methoxy radical (CH3O). The reasons why I chose this topic are because this radical is the simplest and interesting alkoxy radical (RO) and my current research advisor is one of the authorities of methoxy radical. Methoxy radical is an important chemical existed in atmosphere and had an important role in combustion chemistry. Because of using the fossil fuel, many different chemicals produced by combustion and cause more or less impact of the environment. Being an important intermediate of chemical reaction in atmosphere, scientists work on studying the formation of alkoxy radicals to understand the structure, reaction dynamics and kinetics. This knowledge can help human beings know the key point of reaction involving alkoxy radicals and then try to prevent the air pollution by breaking the process such as creating new chemicals which are not able to produce the radicals. A very famous example is the substitution for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). When we go to grocery stores and buy the pressurized air duster, the product must has “CFC-free” label because people have already found the substitution and CFCs since CFCs are on of the source of ozone depletion. Not only CFCs, but also many radicals produced by humans’ action can produce radicals and pollute the environment. Since alokoxy radical can be produced by any kind of combustion reaction which involves hydrocarbon molecules and oxygen, the plenty alkoxy radicals would be another source of air pollution. Our group works on methoxy radical for several years because methoxy is the simplest and almost solvable radical by laser spectroscopy now a day. Referring to the previous published articles, the group analyzed many vibronic levels in the first electronic excited state and had a more precise picture of the physical and chemical property of methoxy radical. These results can help us to build a “catalogue” of methoxy radical for further experimental and theoretical researches. Another reason why I chose this topic is because I am one of the members who participate in this project from this year (our group has some other sub-groups dealing with different projects), this assignment also gives me a chance to search the articles and collect more idea about my future research topic(s). It’s hard to discuss the detail about methoxy radical in a 300-word article, but I will be glad to try my best to discuss more about the topic if any of you are interested in the experimental and theoretical parts of my topic.

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