Urban alkene oxidation

Photolysis of atmospheric pollutants by solar radiation results in an increase of ozone concentration in certain urban areas and is the cause of a sequence of oxidation reactions with polymers. Ozone reacts with practically all organic materials especially with alkenes. The rate of its reaction with alkene is several orders of magnitude higher than that with alkane. The ratio of the rate constants of ozone with ethene/ethane is 1.5 x 105, with propene/propane 1.6 x 106, and with butene- 1/butane 1.1 x 106, at room temperature [5],... 

The photodecomposition of the various oxidation products of the alkanes, alkenes, and the aromatic hydrocarbons play important roles in the chemistry of the urban, mral, and remote atmospheres. These processes provide radical and other reachve products that help drive the chemistry that leads to ozone generation and other important chemistty in the troposphere. In this chapter, we have reviewed the evidence for the nature of the primary processes that occur in the aldehydes, ketones, alkyl nitrites, nittoalkanes, alkyl nitrates, peroxyacyl nitrates, alkyl peroxides, and some representative, ttopospheric, sunlight-absorbing aromatic compounds. Where sufficient data exist, estimates have been made of the rate of the photolytic processes that occur in these molecules by calculation of the photolysis frequencies ory-values. These rate coefficients allow estimation of the photochemical lifetimes of the various compounds in the atmosphere as well as the rates at which various reactive products are formed through photolysis. 

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