Rate of reaction of the hydrogen atom with nitrous oxide in ambient water

•Rate of reaction H●+N2O=●OH + N2 in solution was measured by pulse radiolysis.•N2O-saturated 0.1 M HCl aqueous solution has been used.•The reaction rate constant is (9±2)×104 M−1 s−1 at (24±1 °C).

The reaction of the hydrogen atom with nitrous oxide has been investigated by pulse radiolysis of N2O-saturated 0.1 M HCl solution at room temperature (24±1 °C). The value of (9±2)×104 M−1 s−1 obtained for the reaction rate constant is between the early estimates 1×104 M−1 s−1 by Czapski and Jortner (1960) and 4.3×105 M−1 s−1 by Thomas (1969), and is much lower than 2×106 M−1 s−1 used recently (Janik et al., 2007; Ismail et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2015; Meesungnoen et al., 2015).