The lightweight muonium atom would move rapidly between two heavy
bromine atoms,
“like a Ping Pong ball bouncing between two bowling
balls,”
Donald Fleming, a University of British Columbia chemist involved with the experiment says.
The oscillating atom would briefly hold the two
bromine atoms together and reduce the overall energy.
image credit:http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/10/isotope-effect-produces-new-type-chemical-bond In the vibrational bond muonium would 'bounce' between the two bromine atoms |
This vibrational bond seems to break the law of chemistry that states
if
you increase the temperature, the rate of reaction will speed up.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201408211/abstract Replacing atoms electrons with more exotic sub-atomic particles |
Donald Fleming suggested that the BrMuBr radical can exist, and is not merely a theoretical construct.
*Muonium (Mu) - a strange, hydrogen isotope made up of an antimuon and an electron
The team reported its results last December in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a publication of the German Chemical Society. The work confirms that vibrational bonds—fleeting though they may be—should be added to the list of known chemical bonds. And although the bromine-muonium reaction was an “ideal” system to verify vibrational bonding, Fleming predicts the phenomenon also occurs in other reactions between heavy and light atoms.
(credit:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chemists-confirm-the-existence-of-new-type-of-bond/)
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