| dc.description.abstract | Industrial development, increase in population and need for improving the living standards of people around the globe have resulted into high demand of energy worldwide. The renewable energy sources seem to be unreliable and insufficient to meet this demand; hence the continued use of fossil fuels especially coal in power generation becomes necessary. Fossil fuels are well known for their environmental detriments including global warming which leads to climate change. With this cause, the world has to use the fossil fuels in an environmentally friendly manner to ensure that the amount of pollutants released into the atmosphere is minimized.<br>
In combating climate change, technologies have been developed whereby the prime greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is captured and stored. One of these technologies makes use of amines which at the end of the process are released into the atmosphere where they have been proven to undergo degradation leading to the formation of other several compounds including nitramines and nitrosamines, the latter being more potent carcinogenic.<br>
In this study the loss pathways of four nitramines through their reaction with the well-known oxidants found in the atmosphere have been thoroughly investigated. Nitrosamines have been found to undergo rapid photolysis in the presence of sunlight, thus their reaction with the most abundant oxidant at night, the nitrate radical have been investigated using two simple nitrosamines.<br>
The rate coefficients for OH radicals, Ozone and Cl atoms reactions with 4 nitramines at 298 K and 1013 hPa have been determined using relative rate method, and the lifetimes of the 4 nitramines following their reaction with these oxidants in the atmosphere have also been determined. Likewise, the rate coefficients for the reactions of the nitrate radicals (NO3) with two simple nitrosamines were determined at the same conditions using the same method. Moreover, the lifetimes of these nitrosamines following their reactions with the nitrate radicals in the atmosphere were calculated.<br>
The primary products resulting from the reactions of OH radicals and Cl atoms with four nitramines have been investigated and hence identified using FT-IR detection method. Further, the OH initiated photooxidation of formamide have been studied as well and the only resulting product namely isocyanic acid was detected.<br>
The Structure Activity Relationship (SAR) for OH reactions with nitramines was also studied and found not applicable due to the fact that, the reaction rate coefficients estimated using SAR differ significantly with the experimental results.<br>
Infrared absorption cross-sections as well as integrated absorption intensities have been determined for a number of compounds. | en_US |