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What do you mean by Radiation Chemistry?

Radiation chemistry is a branch of chemistry which is developed is recent years. Whenever a substance is exposed to extremely high radiations of energy like gamma rays, some reactions take place and these reactions are dealt by Radiation Chemistry. This Process is named as Radiolysis.

Radiolysis takes place in two stages which are:

Primary Stage
Secondary Stage

Primary Stage: In this stage formation of ions and electrons due to ionization of substance which take place whenever that substance is exposed to a very high energy radiations.

Thus:
A High energy ——-> A+ + e
Radiation

Secondary Stage: In this stage, the ions and the electrons formed in primary stage give rise to a variety of reactions. Some of the reactions are given below:

a) Formation of molecule which is Excited :
A+ + e ———>A*
(Excited Molecule)

b) Capture of the released electron by a molecule M to form M ion :

M + e ——-> M

c) Interaction of ions A+ and M to give excited molecule :
A+ + M ———->A* +M (Excited Molecule)

d) Decomposition of the Excited molecule A* into free radicals X• and Y• or to give stable molecule B and C:

A*——-> X• + Y• (free radicals)
A* ——-> B + C (stable molecules)

e) Decomposition of ion A* into another ion R+ and free radical X•
A* ——-> R+ + X• (free radicals)

Free radicals which are formed in above reaction initialize other chain reactions.