Diffusion-influenced reactions and normal solutions of the Boltzmann equation

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Abstract:

The influence of the boundary layer in the vicinity of a reactive sink on the chemical rate coefficients of diffusion-influenced reactions is studied using kinetic theory. It is argued that normal solutions to the Boltzmann equation break down at first order in Pe-1, where P e is the thermal Peclet number, for the reaction problem. When the effects of the kinetic boundary layer are consistently treated to first order in Pe-1 the rate coefficient which follows from the diffusion equation with the radiation boundary condition is obtained. The importance of properly treating terms of order Pe-1 is discussed and parallels with Stokes' law calculations are described. © 1981 American Institute of Physics.