Chain reaction
- This is about chain reactions in chemistry and physics. For other uses, see Chain reaction (disambiguation)
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions.
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Examples
- The neutron-fission chain reaction: a neutron plus a fissionable atom causes a fission resulting in a larger number of neutrons than was consumed in the initial reaction.
- Chemical reactions, where a product of a reaction is itself a reactive particle which can cause more similar reactions. For example, every step of H2 + Cl2 chain reaction consumes one molecule of H2 or Cl2, one free radical H· or Cl· producing one HCl molecule and another free radical.
- Electron avalanche process: Collisions of free electrons in a strong electric field forming "new" electrons to undergo the same process in successive cycles.
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See also
- Nuclear chain reaction
- Polymerase chain reaction
- Markov chain
- Chain letter
- Ladder-up reactionca:Reacció en cadena
cs:Řetězová reakce de:Kettenreaktion es:Reacción en cadena fr:Réaction en chaîne nl:Kettingreactie pl:Reakcja łańcuchowa sv:Kedjereaktion