Zel'dovich mechanism

Zel'dovich mechanism is a chemical mechanism which describes the oxidation of nitrogen and NOx formation, first proposed by the Russian scientists Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, David A. Frank-Kamenetskii and P.Ya. Sadovnikov in 1947. The reaction mechanisms read as

where ${\displaystyle k_{1}}$ and ${\displaystyle k_{2}}$ are the reaction rate constants in Arrhenius law. The overall global reaction is given by

The overall reaction rate is mostly governed by first equation since the second equation is much faster than the first equation that occurs instantaneously immediately following the first equation.

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