Discussion of: THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTIVE SURFACE AREA IN THE CARBON-OXYGEN REACTION

Abstract

Vol. 67able disagreement as to the value of the activation energy for the carbon-oxygen reaction.As was pointed out, this is caused by, in part, the fact that different experimenters have made reactivity studies in the realm of partial diffusion control and with samples of widely different purity and crystallinity. From this study, it is clear that another factor which will invalidate the values of activation energies calculated from incomplete experimental data is the variation in UASA with temperature. For these studies, over the temperature range 575-675', the activation energy for 0 2 depletion was 36 i 2 kcal./mole; the activation energy for carbon gasification was 44 f 2 kcal./mole. The activation energy for carbon gasification is higher than that for oxygen consumption, since the CO-Cot product ratio increased with increasing reaction temperature-or the carbon was more efficiently gasified. Most of the studies were performed using a Graphon sample weight of 0.100 g. Sufficient runs were made, however, with 0.050-g. samples to show that the activation energies were independent of sample weight. This means that the reaction rate was solely controlled by the intrinsic chemical reactivity of the Graphon and not, in part, by the diffusion of O2 through the bed of