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Multimer Radical Ions and Electron/Hole Localization in Polyatomic Molecular Liquids: A critical review

While ionization of some polyatomic molecular liquids (such as water and aliphatic alcohols) yields so-called "solvated electrons" in which the excess electron density is localized in the interstices between the solvent molecules, most organic and inorganic liquids yield radical anions and cations in which the electron and spin densities reside on the solvent molecule or, more commonly, a group of such molecules. The resulting multimer ions have many unusual properties, such as high rates of diffusive hopping. The "solvated electron" can be regarded as a variant of a multimer radical anion in which the charge, while perturbing the solvent molecules, mainly resides in the space between these molecules. We give several examples of less known modes for electron localization in liquids that yield multimer radical anions (such as C6F6, benzene, acetonitrile, carbon disulfide and dioxide, etc.) and holes localization in liquids that yield multimer radical cations (such as cycloalkanes). Current understanding of the reaction properties for these high-mobility solvent radical anions and cations is discussed.