A phenomenon of the anti-inhibition of radiolytic hydrogen formation, which was previously unknown in radiation chemistry, was described earlier [1, 2]. Essentially, this effect consists in the following. Assume solute S that captures and tightly binds intratrack electrons to be dissolved in a liquid. The yield of hydrogen formation considerably decreases at a sufficiently high concentration of S. It was found that, on the addition of another effective scavenger A of quasi-free electrons (unlike S, the molecule of A weakly holds the trapped electron) to the solution, the yield of H-2 increases and reaches a maximum value, which is observed at negligible concentrations of S, as the concentration of A is increased. Thus, at a sufficiently high concentration of the molecules of A, the presence of inhibitor S and its reaction with electrons have almost no effect on the formation of hydrogen. This action of scavenger A is designated the anti-inhibition. This effect was described in more detail elsewhere [1, 2]. The aim of this work was to study the anti-inhibiting effect of hydrogen ions in potassium nitrate solutions irradiated with 20-MeV protons, which are characterized by considerably higher linear energy transfer (LET) values as compared with Compton electrons produced by Co-60 gamma-rays in water.
