Abstract
The hydrogen abstraction reactions of $SiH_4, SiH_2Cl_2 \;and\; SiHCl_3$ by ground state chlorine atoms generated photochemically from chlorine molecules have been studied at temperatures between 15 and $100^{\circ}C.$ The absolute rates for the reactions have been obtained by a competition technique using ethane as a competitor. The rate expressions ($in cm^3/mol/s$) are found to conform to an Arrhenius rate law: $k_{SiH_4} = (7.98 {\pm} 0.42) {\times} 10^{13}$ exp $[-(1250 {\pm}20)/T].$ $k_{SiH_2Cl_2} = (2.25 {\pm} 0.12) {\times} 10^{15}$ exp[-(1010 ${\pm}$ 10)/T]. $k_{SiHCl_3} = (9.04 {\pm} 0.28) {\times} 10^{14}\; exp[-(1200 {\pm} 10)/T].$ The activation energies obtained from this study represent the same trend as with the carbon analogues, while this trend was not found with respect to the bond dissociation energies among silicon compound homologues. These anomalous behaviors were interpreted in terms of electronic effects and of the structural differences between these compounds.