Response of the system

Any of the techniques for disturbing an equilibrium can be combined with a variety of detection systems. Depending on the nature of the relaxation effect, it can be monitored by absorption or emission spectroscopy, by fluorometry, or by polarimetry. Conductance changes can be measured. Crystals are used to detect ultrasonic waves and to measure absorption effects.

While a priori there is no restriction on the magnitude of the displacement from equilibrium, in practice small disturbances are used to permit the application of a linear rate equation (terms denoting changes with time are to the first power). The rate of disappearance, for instance, of a small displacement from equilibrium is approximately proportional to the magnitude of the displacement. This relationship is given by the differential equation

Here, the displacement (ΔX) is the difference between the instantaneous and the equilibrium values of the relaxing property, which might be the kinetic energy of molecules behind a shock front or the concentration of a chemical reactant. The reciprocal of the constant of proportionality has units of time and is called the relaxation time (τ, tau). Since the equilibrium values may be time-dependent, the solution of the rate equation depends on the form of the forcing function. Propagation of a sound wave through nitrogen tetroxide gas, for instance, causes a sinusoidal variation of the equilibrium concentrations of monomers and dimers with time. A great advantage of relaxation methods is that the response to small disturbances can be approximated by a first-order differential equation.

The relaxation time for a chemical process can be related to the reactivities of the reactants if the reaction mechanism is known. Conversely, it may be possible to deduce the reaction mechanism from the dependence of the relaxation time on reactant concentrations. If several chemical reactions are coupled or if more than one vibrational state is excited, a spectrum of relaxation times may be observed. The relaxation times for the individual relaxation processes can be determined from the measured relaxation times, which are the normal modes for the coupled system.

Temperature-jump experiment

To summarize and clarify this discussion, a temperature-jump relaxation experiment—an important technique in relaxation studies—will be described. In this technique the equilibrium of a system is disrupted by suddenly changing the temperature and observing the concentrations of the reactants as a function of time. The name “temperature jump” is usually reserved for the relaxation technique in which a stepwise temperature perturbation is achieved by passing a large electric current through the solution under study and thus heating it almost instantaneously; another method is to apply ultrasonic radiation to the system. Instrumentally, it is one of the simplest relaxation techniques. It is also the most generally useful method for the study of fast chemical reactions in solution.

A typical temperature-jump instrument produces a temperature rise of approximately 8 °C (46 °F) within 5 microseconds. The principles of this instrument are briefly explained as follows. A 0.05-microfarad capacitor is charged to between 30 and 40 kilovolts. The electrical energy stored on the capacitor is proportional to its capacitance and to the voltage squared. It is discharged through the reaction cell at time zero by closing a variable spark gap. The time required for dissipation of roughly 80 percent of the stored energy is given by the product of the capacitance times the cell resistance. The energy is dissipated through collisions between the ions, which conduct the discharge current through the solution and the solvent molecules. The rapid temperature increase causes a shift in the concentrations of reactive molecules in the solution to new equilibrium values. If this shift is accompanied by a colour change, the reaction rate can be monitored spectrophotometrically (i.e., the change in the intensity of light of a selected wavelength with time is measured). The results are recorded on a storage oscilloscope for later display. Provided that the rise time of the temperature pulse is much shorter and the thermal re-equilibration time much longer than the response time of the chemical reaction being studied, the temperature jump can be approximated as a step perturbation. At times greater than zero, the equilibrium concentrations of the reactants remain constant at the values corresponding to the higher temperature. Consequently, the differential equation for the disappearance of the displacement of reactant X from equilibrium can be integrated to show that this value decays exponentially.

Nuclear magnetic resonance

Relaxation phenomena have important implications in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry, an analytical technique used by chemists to identify and probe the molecular structure of substances. When examined by this technique, a sample is placed in a powerful magnetic field. Certain nuclei in the test material behave as tiny bar magnets and line up with the field. But when more energy is added to the system—in the form of radio waves, for example—the nuclei “flip” into a different, higher-energy orientation. This phenomenon is useful to the chemist because nuclei in different structural arrangements within a molecule accept different and discrete frequencies of radio waves in order to flip, and so, by applying a whole range of radio wave frequencies to the sample, it is possible to correlate the absorbed frequencies with the structural features of the material under test.

The sensitivity of the technique is dictated by the time and route taken for excited nuclei to dissipate their excess energy and revert to low-energy orientations, lined up with the applied magnetic field.

The results of an NMR scan are charted as a radio wave spectrum showing which frequencies were absorbed or emitted and hence which structural groups and atoms are present in the sample. Similar effects govern the performance of electron spin resonance (ESR), another analytical technique widely used by chemists.

In the introduction to the article “Molecular Basis of Visual Excitation,” the Nobel laureate George Wald wrote,

I have often had cause to feel that my hands are cleverer than my head. That is a crude way of characterizing the dialectics of experimentation. When it is going well, it is like a quiet conversation with Nature. One asks a question and gets an answer; then one asks the next question, and gets the next answer. An experiment is a device to make Nature speak intelligibly. After that one has only to listen.

Relaxation phenomena afford a unique method for making nature speak intelligibly about rapid energy transfers and chemical reactions. They have only begun to be exploited, especially to probe the elementary steps in complex biochemical reactions.