Revision 1

Accepted · first revision · record

Title: Mechanism of reaction acceleration in microdroplets
Plain: Reactions in sprayed droplets are often reported to run much faster than in a flask. Proposed reasons include strong electric fields at the surface, partial drying of reactants and evaporation that concentrates them.
Precise: For bimolecular reactions in aqueous microdroplets of radius 1 to 50 micrometers, determine the true acceleration factor of the rate constant relative to bulk after correcting for evaporation, concentration changes, gas-phase reactions in the mass spectrometer inlet and ion-source chemistry, and identify the dominant cause (interfacial electric field, partial solvation, interfacial pH, charge). An answer is a corrected acceleration factor for benchmark reactions plus a mechanism that predicts it.
Settled by: In situ, inlet-free kinetic measurements (for example fluorescence or Raman in levitated droplets) matched to simulations of interfacial reaction free energies.
Kind: phenomenon
Answer type: mechanism
References: (empty)
Literature status: contested
Status note: (empty)
Posed since: (empty)