Recent developments in the study of ion-molecule reactions

A review is presented of the more important gas phase ion-molecule reaction studies carried out during the past few years. It is restricted to low-energy processes (thermal up to 10 eV CM) and is concerned with (a) instrumentation (single-source instruments, dual sources, the flowing afterglow and flow-drift methods, ion cyclotron resonance spectrometry, other methods); (b) thermal rate constants; (c) internal energy and temperature effects; (d) equilibria and thermodynamic data; (e) reaction mechanisms. (U.K.)