Argon hydrochloride, Ar.HCl, bond energy by infrared spectroscopy
The infrared absorption of argon (200 to 760 torr) and hydrogen chloride (2 to 6 torr) mixtures is reexamined in the missing Q branch region (spectral region between 2860 and 3010 wavelength/cm) at temperatures ranging from 195 to 298 K. The temperature dependence of two absorption features of the argon hydrogen chloride complex, at 2887 and 2879 wavelength/cm, leads to a bond energy estimate that depends on the assumptions made about the internal degrees of freedom of the complex. It is shown that agreement with experiment can be reached for well depths near 1.2 kcal/mole. This result is relatively insensitive to the choice of the vibrational frequencies and anharmonicities, but does depend on the extent to which the energy level manifolds are truncated to avoid molecular excitation in excess of the bond energy. The bond energy is found to deviate from the commonly accepted value of 0.4 kcal/mole. Possible causes for the discrepancy are considered.