Dissociative recombination

Dissociative recombination is a process where a positive molecular ion recombines with an electron, and as a result, the neutral molecule dissociates. This reaction is important for extraterrestrial and atmospheric chemistry. On Earth, dissociative recombination rarely occurs naturally, as free electrons react with any molecule (even neutral molecules) they encounter. Even in the best laboratory conditions, dissociative recombination is hard to observe, but is an important reaction in systems that have large populations of ionized molecules, for instance in atmospheric-pressure plasmas.