“Secções de choque totais do espalhamento de elétrons por biomoléculas na região de baixas energias”

Abstract

Precise values of the Total Cross Section (TCS) for electron scattering by primary alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol and 1-butanol, are very important in many applied areas, given that the TCS reflects the reactivity of a molecular target in the collision processes as a function of the electron energy. These values are very useful, for instance, when modeling alcohol combustion through a spark ignition process within an internal combustion engines. Through this modeling we can improve the performance of motor vehicles, and all technologies currently utilizing fossil fuels. Absolute Total Cross Section (ATCS) measurements for electron scattering from 1-propanol molecules were obtained in this work, for impact energies from 40 to 500 eV. These data were obtained using a new apparatus developed in this work, which is based on the measurement of the attenuation of a collimated electron beam through a gas cell containing the molecules to be studied at a given pressure and temperature. This new apparatus consists of an electron gun, a gas cell, an electron energy analyzer composed of an array of decelerating electrostatic lenses, a cylindrical dispersive 127° analyzer (CDA 127°), and a Faraday cup. The apparatus is housed inside a vacuum chamber covered by 5 layers of mu-metal, for shielding against spurious magnetic fields, and differentially pumped through two turbomolecular pumps; one with a pumping speed of 80 l/s, for pumping the electron gun chamber in order to avoid changes in the electron emitting filament characteristics when gas is introduced into the chamber; and the other, with 600 l/s pumping speed, for pumping the scattering cell and analyzer region. The developed apparatus showed excellent performance when comparing our TCS data produced with it, with data from literature for the gases Ar, He, N2. Our TCS measurements for 1-propanol, to the best of our knowledge, are the first in the literature. These experimental measurements were compared with calculated TCS using the Independent-Atom Model with Screening Corrected Additivity Rule and Interference (IAM-SCAR+I) approach with the level of agreement between them being typically found to be very good.