Some aspects of negative ion chemistry

In a classic early review on ion-molecule reactions, a table of negative ion-neutral reactions for which quantitative data were available had 9 entries. In a recent review on negative ion-neutral reactions alone, tables of negative ion-neutral reaction rate constants included 174 reactions, reflecting the increase in knowledge in this field in a little over one decade. In this paper some of the negative ion-neutral reaction studies done at Boulder in a flowing afterglow system are discussed. Some of the current research on both positive and negative ions in the recently developed Flow-Drift Tube are discussed, including both mobility and reaction rate constant measurements.