Water formation at low temperatures by surface O2 hydrogenation I: characterization of ice penetration

TL;DR

This study investigates how the structure of O2 ice influences water formation at low temperatures through hydrogenation, revealing complex reaction mechanisms and the need to consider additional surface reactions.

Contribution

It provides detailed experimental insights into H-atom penetration and reaction mechanisms in O2 ice, highlighting the incomplete nature of existing hydrogenation schemes.

Findings

H-atom penetration depends on ice temperature, thickness, and structure.

Reaction and diffusion compete, affecting water and hydrogen peroxide formation.

Ozone formation indicates additional reaction pathways beyond O2 hydrogenation.

Abstract

Water is the main component of interstellar ice mantles, is abundant in the solar system and is a crucial ingredient for life. The formation of this molecule in the interstellar medium cannot be explained by gas-phase chemistry only and its surface hydrogenation formation routes at low temperatures (O, O2, O3 channels) are still unclear and most likely incomplete. In a previous paper we discussed an unexpected zeroth-order H2O production behavior in O2 ice hydrogenation experiments compared to the first-order H2CO and CH3OH production behavior found in former studies on hydrogenation of CO ice. In this paper we experimentally investigate in detail how the structure of O2 ice leads to this rare behavior in reaction order and production yield. In our experiments H atoms are added to a thick O2 ice under fully controlled conditions, while the changes are followed by means of reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). The H-atom penetration mechanism is systematically studied by varying the temperature, thickness and structure of the O2 ice. We conclude that the competition between reaction and diffusion of the H atoms into the O2 ice explains the unexpected H2O and H2O2 formation behavior. In addition, we show that the proposed O2 hydrogenation scheme is incomplete, suggesting that additional surface reactions should be considered. Indeed, the detection of newly formed O3 in the ice upon H-atom exposure proves that the O2 channel is not an isolated route. Furthermore, the addition of H2 molecules is found not to have a measurable effect on the O2 reaction channel.