Response to comments by Referee #2

Abstract

The authors thank the referee for helpful comments to strengthen and clarify the manuscript. Our responses are provided below.1. The referee would like clarification on our motivation for the selection of dimerization rate constants used in our calculations.Author response: Our calculations used dimerization rate constants in the range 10-3 to 10-1 M-1s-1 with most calculations at 10-2 M-1s-1. As stated in the original manuscript, 10-2 M-1s-1 happens to be the reported value for dimerization of glyoxal. The reference cited by the referee (Ziemann, P. J. and Atkinson, R., Chem. Soc. Rev., 41, 6582-6605, 2012) reviews kinetic and thermodynamic data for several types C1