Ion–atom interaction potentials and transport properties Original Research Article

The computation of gaseous ion transport coefficients from knowledge of the ion-neutral interaction potential is now routine for atomic ion-atom systems. It is shown that good agreement with experiment is possible, however, only for potentials of extremely high accuracy. These results suggest that it is not worthwhile to perform a rigorous treatment for systems with polyatomic ions or neutrals. The approximation proposed by Monchick and Mason is shown to be sufficiently accurate to test the potentials presently available for such systems.