A new modeling tool for the diffusion of gases in ice or amorphous binary mixture in the polar stratosphere and the upper troposphere

Abstract. To elaborate stratospheric ozone depletion processes, measurements of diffusion coefficients of selected gas phase molecules (i.e. HCl, CH₃OH, HCOOH and CH₃COOH; Katsambas et al., 1997; Kondratyev and Varotsos, 1996; Varotsos et al., 1994, 1995) in ice in the temperature range 170–195 K have been analyzed with respect to the mechanisms and rates of diffusion. It is argued that the diffusion in ice of these compounds is governed by a vacancy – mediated mechanism, i.e. H₂O vacancies are required to diffuse to lattice sites adjacent to these compounds prior to the diffusion of the corresponding molecule into the vacancy sites. In addition, we show that the diffusion coefficients of these compounds exhibit a specific interconnection, i.e. a linear relationship holds between the logarithm of the pre-exponential factor, D_o, and the activation energy E. The physical meaning of this interconnection is discussed.