Chemistry of inorganic vapors

Abstract

The chemistry of inorganic vapors is for the most part the chemistry of high-temperature vapors. This article essentially reports on the gaseous species observed in the equilibrium vapors and their dissociation or atomization energies. Most of the results were obtained by Knudsen effusion mass spectrometry. The fundamentals of this method are described with respect to the recent methodic developments. Accounts of the investigations of metals, alloys, oxides, metal halides, and technical materials are given and the results are reviewed. Vaporization processes and thermochemical properties of condensed phases evaluated from gas phase data are also considered. The results are for example of interest for the active fields of energy, high-temperature materials, and cluster research. An extended summary with outlook is given in Sect. 7--"Summary and conclusions"~of this article.