Dynamical localization, unimolecular reaction

One of the most important characteristics of micelles is their ability to enclose all kinds of substances. Capture of these compounds in micelles is generally driven by hydrophobic, electrostatic and hydrogen-bonding interactions. The dynamics of solubilization into micelles are similar to those observed for entrance and exit of individual surfactant molecules, but the micelle-bound substrate will experience a reaction environment different from bulk water, leading to kinetic medium effects308. Hence, micelles are able to catalyse or inhibit reactions. The catalytic effect on unimolecular reactions can be attributed exclusively to the local medium effect. For more complicated bimolecular or higher-order reactions, the rate of the reaction is affected by an additional parameter the local concentrations of the reacting species in or at the micelle. 

The Langmuir-Hinshelwood picture is essentially that of Fig. XVIII-14. If the process is unimolecular, the species meanders around on the surface until it receives the activation energy to go over to product(s), which then desorb. If the process is bimolecular, two species diffuse around until a reactive encounter occurs. The reaction will be diffusion controlled if it occurs on every encounter (see Ref. 211) the theory of surface diffusional encounters has been treated (see Ref. 212) the subject may also be approached by means of Monte Carlo/molecular dynamics techniques [213]. In the case of activated bimolecular reactions, however, there will in general be many encounters before the reactive one, and the rate law for the surface reaction is generally written by analogy to the mass action law for solutions. That is, for a bimolecular process, the rate is taken to be proportional to the product of the two surface concentrations. It is interesting, however, that essentially the same rate law is obtained if the adsorption is strictly localized and species react only if they happen to adsorb on adjacent sites (note Ref. 214). (The apparent rate law, that is, the rate law in terms of gas pressures, depends on the form of the adsorption isotherm, as discussed in the next section.)... 

Reactants AB+ + CD are considered to associate to form a weakly bonded intermediate complex, AB+ CD, the ground vibrational state of which has a barrier to the formation of the more strongly bound form, ABCD+. The reactants, of course, have access to both of these isomeric forms, although the presence of the barrier will affect the rate of unimolecular isomerization between them. Note that the minimum energy barrier may not be accessed in a particular interaction of AB+ with CD since the dynamics, i.e. initial trajectories and the detailed nature of the potential surface, control the reaction coordinate followed. Even in the absence (left hand dashed line in Figure 1) of a formal barrier (i.e. of a local potential maximum), the intermediate will resonate between the conformations having AB+ CD or ABCD+ character. These complexes only have the possibilities of unimolecular decomposition back to AB+ + CD or collisional stabilization. In the stabilization process,... 

ABSTRACT. Recent work on quantum coupled oscillators and the collinear dynamics of three bodies, as models for unimolecular and bimolecular reactions, is reviewed with special reference to the role of resonances. The approach, semiclassical in spirit, exploits the approximate separability of the radius of hyperspherical formulations and allows to localize the breakdown of adiabaticity at "ridges in the potential", where transitions between modes occur. 

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