High pressure range of addition reactions of HO. II. Temperature and pressure dependence of the reaction HO+CO⇔HOCO→H+CO2

Thermal rate constants of the complex‐forming bimolecular reaction HO+CO■HOCO→H+CO2 were measured between 90 and 830 K in the bath gas He over the pressure range 1–700 bar. In addition, the vibrational relaxation of HO in collisions with CO was studied between 300 and 800 K. HO was generated by laser photolysis and monitored by saturated laser‐induced fluorescence. The derived second‐order rate coefficients showed a pronounced pressure and complicated non‐Arrhenius temperature dependence. Above 650 K, the disappearance of HO followed a biexponential time law, indicating thermal instability of collisionally stabilized HOCO. By analyzing the corresponding results, an enthalpy of formation of HOCO of ΔHof,0=−(205±10) kJ mol−1 was derived. On the basis of energy‐ and angular‐momentum‐dependent rates of HOCO formation, activated complex properties for the addition reaction HO+CO→HOCO were derived from the limiting high‐pressure rate constants; with the limiting low‐pressure rate constants, activated complex pr...