relaxation phenomenon

relaxation phenomenon

▪ physics and chemistry
Introduction

      in physics and chemistry, an effect related to the delay between the application of an external stress to a system—that is, to an aggregation of matter—and its response. It may occur in nuclear, atomic, and molecular systems. Chemists and physicists use relaxation effects to study processes that take only a fraction of a second. When an equilibrated nuclear, atomic, or molecular system is subjected to an abrupt physical change, such as a sudden rise in temperature or pressure, it takes time for the system to re-equilibrate under the new conditions. The relaxation effect may be caused by a redistribution of energy among the nuclear, electronic, vibrational, and rotational energy states of the atoms (atom) and molecules (molecule) that constitute the system, or it may result from a shift in the ratio of the number of product molecules to the number of reactant molecules (those initially taking part) in a chemical reaction. The measurement of relaxation times can provide many insights into atomic and molecular structures and into the rates and mechanisms of chemical reactions.

Historical survey
      The word relaxation was originally applied to a molecular process by the English physicist James Clerk Maxwell (Maxwell, James Clerk). In the paper On the Dynamical Theory of Gases, which he presented in 1866, Maxwell referred to the time required for the elastic force produced when fluids are distorted to diminish or decay to 1/e (e is the base of the natural logarithm system) times its initial value as the “time of relaxation” of the elastic force. The earliest suggestion of a chemical relaxation effect is contained in a dissertation (Berlin, 1910) based on research directed by the German physical chemist Walther Nernst (Nernst, Walther Hermann). Measurements of sound propagation through the gas nitrogen tetroxide—which breaks up, or dissociates, into nitrogen dioxide—led Nernst to suggest that experiments at frequencies at which the dissociation reaction could not keep pace with the temperature and pressure variations that occur within a sound wave would permit evaluation of the dissociation rate. Ten years later, at a meeting of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Albert Einstein (Einstein, Albert) presented a paper in which he described the various theoretical aspects of this relaxation effect.

      The detection of the chemical relaxation effect predicted by Nernst and Einstein did not become technically feasible until the last half of the 20th century. In the first half of the century, physicists and chemists studying relaxation concentrated on physical relaxation processes. Peter Debye (Debye, Peter) referred to the time required for dipolar molecules (molecule) (ones whose charges are unevenly distributed) to orient themselves in an alternating electric field as dielectric relaxation. Sound absorption by gases was used to investigate energy transfer from translational (or displacement in space) to rotational (spinning and tumbling) and vibrational (oscillations within the molecule) degrees of freedom, the three independent forms of motion for a molecule. The former requires only a few molecular collisions, but the transfer of energy between translational and vibrational modes may require thousands of collisions. Because the processes are not instantaneous but time-dependent, relaxation effects are observed. Their measurement provides information about molecular bonding and structure. Chemical relaxation was rediscovered by the German physical chemist Manfred Eigen (Eigen, Manfred) in 1954. Since then, technological advances have permitted the development of techniques for the measurement of relaxation times covering the entire range of molecular processes and chemical reactivity.

      The great variety of relaxation phenomena and of the techniques developed for their study precludes a comprehensive survey. To facilitate a general discussion, the relaxing system, its initial and final states, the nature of the disturbance, and the system's response are considered separately. Examples are cited that emphasize the important features of relaxation phenomena and illustrate the variety of information that can be obtained from their study. A moderately detailed description of one relaxation technique, the temperature-jump method, is used to summarize the discussion.

Relaxation mechanisms
      The chemical relaxation of nitrogen tetroxide is easy to visualize, and it illustrates principles common to all relaxation phenomena. Nitrogen tetroxide (formula N2O4; also called dinitrogen tetroxide) actually is a dimer (a molecule formed from two similar constituents called monomers (monomer)) that dissociates into two molecules of nitrogen dioxide (formula NO2). The monomer and dimer are easily distinguishable: the former is a brown gas; the latter is a colourless gas. The product and reactants exist in equilibrium, represented by the reversible reaction:

      At ambient (room) temperature and atmospheric pressure, approximately 80 percent of the molecules in the mixture are dimers, and the remaining molecules are monomers. The distribution of molecules between the two forms remains unchanged as long as the temperature and pressure are held constant. But when the system is disturbed by a sudden change in temperature or pressure, the gases eventually reach new equilibrium concentrations to suit the new conditions. If the external conditions are altered, then the ratio of monomers to dimers will adjust to a new value. The dependence of the equilibrium on pressure is intuitively understandable as follows: to a good approximation, the volume that a gas occupies at a given pressure and temperature depends directly on the number of gas molecules. The dissociation of one molecule of nitrogen tetroxide into two molecules of nitrogen dioxide entails an expansion of the gas—a doubling of molecules—which is opposed by the external pressure. If the external pressure is increased, the system acts to relieve the stress by reducing its volume—i.e., by combining monomers to form dimers and thus reducing the number of molecules. The equilibrium shifts in favour of dimers under increased pressure and in favour of monomers under reduced pressure. At any steady pressure, the ratio of the two forms eventually becomes constant.

      Chemical relaxation results from the inability of systems at equilibria to respond instantaneously to changes in external conditions. The rate of reestablishment of equilibrium, or re-equilibration, is limited by the concentrations of the reactants and their reactivities. At any specified temperature and pressure, there is a definite probability per unit time that a nitrogen tetroxide molecule will dissociate into two nitrogen dioxide molecules and that the latter will recombine to form a dimer. The average lifetime of a nitrogen tetroxide molecule at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, for example, is about one-third of a microsecond (one-millionth of a second). The product of the reciprocal of the average lifetime times the concentration of nitrogen tetroxide molecules gives the rate at which they dissociate. At equilibrium there is no net change in the number of nitrogen tetroxide molecules, because their dissociation rate is exactly balanced by the rate at which they are being re-formed through association of nitrogen dioxide molecules. If the external conditions are altered, the reactivities of the monomer and dimer change instantaneously, but their concentrations change at a finite rate until the balance between the association and dissociation rates is reestablished. By determining the relaxation time, it is possible to derive the rate at which nitrogen dioxide combines to form dinitrogen tetroxide, as well as the rate of the reverse reaction.

       sound propagating through a gas can be pictured as a pressure wave whose alternating increase and falling off of pressure, called a sinusoidal variation of pressure, with time at any point in the medium is accompanied by a corresponding fluctuation in the temperature. The effect of the varying temperature and pressure of a sound wave moving through nitrogen tetroxide gas on the dissociation of nitrogen tetroxide depends on the frequency of that sound wave. When the pressure oscillates slowly enough, the dissociation reaction will remain at equilibrium with the oscillation; that is, the extremes in the monomer-dimer ratio will coincide with the extremes of pressure and temperature. If, on the other hand, the pressure fluctuates too rapidly for the reaction to follow, the ratio of monomers to dimers will remain constant at the equilibrium value for the ambient temperature and pressure; but at intermediate frequencies a relaxation effect may be observed, and a readjustment of the chemical equilibrium will lag behind the pressure variation within the gas.

      The relaxing chemical equilibrium results both in the absorption of sound by the gas and in dispersion of, or changes in, the sound velocity. Measurement of either of these effects permits evaluation of the relaxation time. The maximum absorption of sound occurs, for example, when the angular frequency (two π times cycles per second) of the sound wave equals the reciprocal of the relaxation time. The relaxation time can then in turn be related to the mechanism of the chemical reaction and to the reactivities of the reactants.

The relaxing system
      Relaxation may occur between any two allowed energy states of nuclei (nucleus), atoms (atom), or molecules (molecule) in the solid, liquid, or gas phase. A distinction has already been made between chemical relaxation, which involves a transformation between two chemically distinguishable molecules (molecule) such as the dissociation of nitrogen tetroxide, and physical processes such as the transfer of energy between translational and vibrational states of a molecule displayed by sound absorption in a homogeneous gas. Although it is useful to classify relaxation processes as chemical or molecular, the distinction between them depends on the height of the energy barrier separating the chemical species, and it becomes blurred when structural isomerizations (isomerization) are considered. Liquid methylcyclohexane, for example, absorbs sound of ultrahigh frequency. The relaxation effect is attributed to an isomerization (change in structure) between two forms of the molecule called the axial and equatorial chair forms, as shown below:

      In the axial form the methyl group (−CH3) lies perpendicular to the principal axis of the carbon ring, whereas in the equatorial form the methyl group lies in the plane of the ring. Whether the interconversion is considered a chemical or a molecular relaxation process is largely a matter of definition.

      Atomic nuclei may exhibit relaxation effects. Some nuclei spin mechanically. Because nuclei are charged, there is a magnetic field associated with a spinning nucleus: it behaves like a simple bar magnet with a north and a south pole. The nucleus is said to have a magnetic moment that will experience a force when placed in an external magnetic field. A hydrogen nucleus in an external magnetic field, for example, may orient its nuclear magnetic moment either parallel or antiparallel to the external field. The latter is a higher-energy orientation, called the upper spin state. The equilibrium distribution of many hydrogen nuclei between the two spin states (parallel and antiparallel) can be perturbed (i.e., changed) by the absorption of electromagnetic radiation of appropriate frequency. The system will then relax to the equilibrium distribution by time-dependent radiationless transitions of the hydrogen nuclei from the upper to the lower spin state. This process of returning to the equilibrium distribution is called spin-lattice relaxation, because the excess energy of the upper spin state is transferred to molecules surrounding the relaxing hydrogen nuclei as increased translational, rotational, or vibrational energy.

      As with nuclei, atoms and molecules can be excited to higher energy states by the absorption of electromagnetic radiation. A nonequilibrium distribution of atoms or molecules in excited states is frequently accomplished by a technique called flash photolysis, in which the system of atoms or molecules is subjected to an intense flash of visible or ultraviolet light. The excited species may undergo many fates, but if they decay to the equilibrium distribution between the ground, or lowest, states and the excited states of the original atoms or molecules, the system is said to have relaxed.

      The word relaxation is sometimes used to describe the radiation of energy by individual molecules, atoms, or nuclei rather than by a large number of them. A hydrogen nucleus, for example, may decay from the upper to the lower spin state by transferring radiant energy to a nearby hydrogen nucleus in the lower spin state. This exchange of spins is called spin-spin relaxation. It shortens the lifetime of an individual excited nucleus, but it does not restore the equilibrium distribution of parallel and antiparallel spins. Although it is convenient to think of an individual excited nucleus as relaxing, only the response of an excited population of many nuclei can be measured. This usage of the term relaxation obscures the most useful experimental feature of relaxation processes.

Initial and final states
      In virtually all relaxation experiments, a thermodynamic equilibrium state is disturbed, and the time required for re-equilibration is measured. The practical advantage of starting with a system at equilibrium is most apparent in the study of chemical reactions (chemical reaction) in solution. Nearly all the elementary steps in chemical reactions, such as transfers of protons (proton) and electrons (electron) from one molecule to another, occur in less than a millisecond, and yet, as late as the 1960s, solution reactions with half-times (time in which the reaction is half completed) shorter than a millisecond could not be studied. This limit was imposed by the hydrodynamic problem of mixing two solutions. Reaction rates had been studied by mixing the reactants and monitoring the rate at which products appeared. The most elaborate mechanical mixing devices that have been built so far require a millisecond to initiate a solution reaction. Manfred Eigen (Eigen, Manfred) was the first person to clearly perceive that mixing could be avoided by perturbing an equilibrium and watching it relax. His enormous contribution to the study of fast chemical reactions was recognized by the award of a Nobel Prize in 1967.

      Instead of an equilibrium system being disturbed, a stationary state may be perturbed. Many enzyme-catalyzed reactions, for example, are experimentally irreversible. Nevertheless, for much of the time course of the reaction, the chemical intermediates are present in a stationary state; that is, their concentrations do not change. The stationary state can be disturbed, and the rate of its reestablishment may be used to deduce the lifetimes of the chemical intermediates. Combined rapid mixing and relaxation techniques have been used successfully in a study of catalysis by the enzyme ribonuclease.

Creation of the disturbance
      Eigen divided the methods used to disturb systems into indirect, or competition, methods and direct, or perturbation, methods. In the indirect approach, the relaxing system is continuously disturbed. The competition between the disturbance and the relaxation process results in the establishment of a stationary state, from which information about the relaxation process must be inferred. Ultrasonic absorption is an example of a competition method. The competition between the temperature and pressure variations in the sound wave and the dissociation of nitrogen tetroxide sets up a stationary state in which re-equilibration of the chemical reaction lags behind the pressure fluctuations in the sound wave. The reactivities of the monomer and dimer are derived indirectly from measurements of sound absorption. Flash photolysis is an example of a direct method, in which the system is momentarily perturbed. The molecules (molecule) are electronically excited from the ground, or lowest and normal, energy state to higher energy states by the flash. Their return, or decay, to the ground state can be followed directly by monitoring the reemission of the absorbed light.

      A chemical equilibrium can be disturbed by changing the pressure or temperature or by applying an electric field. If a volume change accompanies a chemical reaction, the ratio of products to reactants at equilibrium will depend on the pressure. The point at which equilibrium sets in will depend on temperature, if heat is absorbed or released in the reaction. The ratio will also depend on electric field strength, if the polarizabilities (change in orientation or position of electric charges (electric charge)) of the reactants and products are different. Nuclear and electronic states can be excited by the absorption of electromagnetic radiation, and the latter can also be excited thermally.

      Perturbation forces, when expressed mathematically in terms of strength and time, are called forcing functions. In principle, a forcing function may assume any form, but in practice it must be easy to generate experimentally and to analyze mathematically. Examples of forcing functions are the sinusoidal temperature and pressure variations in a sound wave (charting the variations produces a curve called a sine curve, which varies from positive to negative values) and sinusoidally alternating electric fields, which are used in dielectric relaxation measurements. Other convenient forcing functions are step, or incremental, perturbations and rectangular pulses (pulses of which the strength rises nearly instantaneously, remains at the higher value for a period of time, and then rapidly returns to its initial value).

      Step perturbations of the temperature and pressure can be produced in shock tubes. A gas at high pressure is separated by a membrane from the gas being studied at low pressure. When the membrane is burst, a plane pressure wave caused by the high-pressure driving gas moves through the low-pressure gas under study. Temperature increases of several thousand degrees may accompany moderate pressure shocks. The shock front travels through the gas with a velocity comparable to the mean molecular velocity, so that the width of the shock front is only a few mean free paths (mean free path) (average distances traveled by the molecules between collisions). As the shock passes, the translational energy of the molecules in the shock front is increased. The system relaxes as the excess energy is distributed by collisions to rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom.

      Rectangular temperature perturbations (plotted on a graph, these show up as a curve that periodically rises suddenly, stays constant for an interval, and then drops suddenly to the original value) can be produced in aqueous solutions of reacting systems by using microwaves (microwave) to heat the solution. Water molecules can absorb energy of rotation at 1010 hertz (cycles per second). By concentrating the microwave energy in a small volume, an increase of several degrees in temperature can be obtained in one microsecond using pulses of radar. Since the radar generator can be repeatedly pulsed, coupling it with a continuous flow system improves the experimental accuracy by averaging over the period of the experiment.

Response of the system
      Any of the techniques for disturbing an equilibrium can be combined with a variety of detection systems. Depending on the nature of the relaxation effect, it can be monitored by absorption or emission spectroscopy, by fluorometry, or by polarimetry. Conductance changes can be measured. Crystals (crystal) are used to detect ultrasonic waves and to measure absorption effects.

      While a priori there is no restriction on the magnitude of the displacement from equilibrium, in practice small disturbances are used to permit the application of a linear rate equation (terms denoting changes with time are to the first power). The rate of disappearance, for instance, of a small displacement from equilibrium is approximately proportional to the magnitude of the displacement. This relationship is given by the differential equation

      Here, the displacement (ΔX) is the difference between the instantaneous and the equilibrium values of the relaxing property, which might be the kinetic energy of molecules behind a shock front or the concentration of a chemical reactant. The reciprocal of the constant of proportionality has units of time and is called the relaxation time (τ, tau). Since the equilibrium values may be time-dependent, the solution of the rate equation depends on the form of the forcing function. Propagation of a sound wave through nitrogen tetroxide gas, for instance, causes a sinusoidal variation of the equilibrium concentrations of monomers (monomer) and dimers with time. A great advantage of relaxation methods is that the response to small disturbances can be approximated by a first-order differential equation.

      The relaxation time for a chemical process can be related to the reactivities of the reactants if the reaction mechanism is known. Conversely, it may be possible to deduce the reaction mechanism from the dependence of the relaxation time on reactant concentrations. If several chemical reactions (chemical reaction) are coupled or if more than one vibrational state is excited, a spectrum of relaxation times may be observed. The relaxation times for the individual relaxation processes can be determined from the measured relaxation times, which are the normal modes for the coupled system.

Temperature-jump experiment
      To summarize and clarify this discussion, a temperature-jump relaxation experiment—an important technique in relaxation studies—will be described. In this technique the equilibrium of a system is disrupted by suddenly changing the temperature and observing the concentrations of the reactants as a function of time. The name “temperature jump” is usually reserved for the relaxation technique in which a stepwise temperature perturbation is achieved by passing a large electric current through the solution under study and thus heating it almost instantaneously; another method is to apply ultrasonic radiation to the system. Instrumentally, it is one of the simplest relaxation techniques. It is also the most generally useful method for the study of fast chemical reactions in solution.

      A typical temperature-jump instrument produces a temperature rise of approximately 8 °C (46 °F) within 5 microseconds. The principles of this instrument are briefly explained as follows. A 0.05-microfarad capacitor is charged to between 30 and 40 kilovolts. The electrical energy stored on the capacitor is proportional to its capacitance and to the voltage squared. It is discharged through the reaction cell at time zero by closing a variable spark gap. The time required for dissipation of roughly 80 percent of the stored energy is given by the product of the capacitance times the cell resistance. The energy is dissipated through collisions between the ions (ion), which conduct the discharge current through the solution and the solvent molecules (molecule). The rapid temperature increase causes a shift in the concentrations of reactive molecules in the solution to new equilibrium values. If this shift is accompanied by a colour change, the reaction rate can be monitored spectrophotometrically (i.e., the change in the intensity of light of a selected wavelength with time is measured). The results are recorded on a storage oscilloscope for later display. Provided that the rise time of the temperature pulse is much shorter and the thermal re-equilibration time much longer than the response time of the chemical reaction being studied, the temperature jump can be approximated as a step perturbation. At times greater than zero, the equilibrium concentrations of the reactants remain constant at the values corresponding to the higher temperature. Consequently, the differential equation for the disappearance of the displacement of reactant X from equilibrium can be integrated to show that this value decays exponentially.

      Relaxation phenomena have important implications in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry, an analytical technique used by chemists to identify and probe the molecular structure of substances. When examined by this technique, a sample is placed in a powerful magnetic field. Certain nuclei (nucleus) in the test material behave as tiny bar magnets (magnet) and line up with the field. But when more energy is added to the system—in the form of radio waves, for example—the nuclei “flip” into a different, higher-energy orientation. This phenomenon is useful to the chemist because nuclei in different structural arrangements within a molecule accept different and discrete frequencies (frequency) of radio waves in order to flip, and so, by applying a whole range of radio wave frequencies to the sample, it is possible to correlate the absorbed frequencies with the structural features of the material under test.

      The sensitivity of the technique is dictated by the time and route taken for excited nuclei to dissipate their excess energy and revert to low-energy orientations, lined up with the applied magnetic field.

      The results of an NMR scan are charted as a radio wave spectrum showing which frequencies were absorbed or emitted and hence which structural groups and atoms (atom) are present in the sample. Similar effects govern the performance of electron spin resonance (ESR), another analytical technique widely used by chemists.

      In the introduction to the article Molecular Basis of Visual Excitation, the Nobel laureate George Wald (Wald, George) wrote,

I have often had cause to feel that my hands are cleverer than my head. That is a crude way of characterizing the dialectics of experimentation. When it is going well, it is like a quiet conversation with Nature. One asks a question and gets an answer; then one asks the next question, and gets the next answer. An experiment is a device to make Nature speak intelligibly. After that one has only to listen.

      Relaxation phenomena afford a unique method for making nature speak intelligibly about rapid energy transfers and chemical reactions (chemical reaction). They have only begun to be exploited, especially to probe the elementary steps in complex biochemical reactions.

Larry D. Faller

Additional Reading
Explorations of chemical relaxation phenomena include Discussions of the Faraday Society, no. 17 (1954), a colloquium on the study of fast reactions that includes a discussion of chemical relaxation by Manfred Eigen; Molecular Relaxation Processes (1966), papers from a Chemical Society symposium emphasizing the use of relaxation to determine molecular structures; M. Eigen and L. De Mayer, “Theoretical Basis of Relaxation Spectroscopy,” Techniques of Chemistry, vol. 6 (1973), with other chapters discussing specific techniques involving relaxation methods; Francis K. Fong, Theory of Molecular Relaxation (1975); J. Fünfschilling (ed.), Relaxation Processes in Molecular Excited States (1989); and D. Steele and J. Yarwood (eds.), Spectroscopy and Relaxation of Molecular Liquids (1991).Larry D. Faller

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Relaxation (NMR) — In nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) the term relaxation describes several processes by which nuclear magnetization prepared in a non equilibrium state return to the equilibrium distribution. In… …   Wikipedia

  • Stress relaxation — describes how polymers relieve stress under constant strain. Because they are viscoelastic, polymers behave in a nonlinear, non Hookean fashion.Meyers and Chawla. Mechanical Behavior of Materials (1999) ISBN 0 13 262817 1] This nonlinearity is… …   Wikipedia

  • Perky phenomenon —    Also known as Perky effect. Both eponyms refer to the American psychologist Cheves West Perky (1874 1940). They refer to the phenomenon of mistaking a sensory percept for a product of the imagination. The phenomenon was first reported by Perky …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

  • chemical kinetics — Introduction       the branch of physical chemistry (chemistry) that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions (chemical reaction). It is to be contrasted with thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in which a… …   Universalium

  • Eigen, Manfred — born May 9, 1927, Bochum, Ger. German physicist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen in 1951. He shared a 1967 Nobel Prize with Ronald Norrish (1897–1978) and George Porter (b. 1920) for work on extremely rapid chemical… …   Universalium

  • Nuclear magnetic resonance — This article is about the physical phenomenon. For its use as a method in spectroscopy, see Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. NMR redirects here. For other uses, see NMR (disambiguation). First 1 GHz NMR Spectrometer (1000 MHz,… …   Wikipedia

  • Hypnosis — For the states induced by hypnotic drugs, see Sleep and Unconsciousness. Hypnotized redirects here. For other uses, see Hypnotized (disambiguation). Hypnosis Applications Hypnotherapy Stage hypnosis Self hypnosis Origins Animal magnetism Franz… …   Wikipedia

  • Reflex — A reaction that is involuntary. The corneal reflex is the blink that occurs with irritation of the eye. The nasal reflex is a sneeze. * * * 1. An involuntary reaction in response to a stimulus applied to the periphery and transmitted to the… …   Medical dictionary

  • Media and Publishing — ▪ 2007 Introduction The Frankfurt Book Fair enjoyed a record number of exhibitors, and the distribution of free newspapers surged. TV broadcasters experimented with ways of engaging their audience via the Internet; mobile TV grew; magazine… …   Universalium

  • Avalanche transistor — An Avalanche Transistor is a bipolar junction transistor designed for operation in the region of its collector current/collector to emitter voltage characteristics beyond the collector to emitter breakdown voltage, called avalanche breakdown… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”