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Show INTRODUCTION This paper is concerned with the stability of chlorinated aromatics in high temperature systems. Our interest is due to the increasing evidence that these and related compounds are or have the potential to be important effluents from hazardous and municipal solid waste incinerators1,2. We will be interested in the rate constants of the single step chemical processes responsible for their transformations in high temperature environments. Particular attention will be paid to the hydrogen atom induced dechlorination of the chlorobenzenes. We justify our fundamental approach on the basis of the relatively recent interest in problems related to the destruction and formation of hazardous wastes during incineration. Unlike other applied subjects, where practical experience is usually so extensive that there is little that a more fundamental approach can contribute, the development of an empirical data base in this area is still at an early stage. The present approach may contribute to greater understanding of the overall process and thus provide insights .which can lead to optimization or alternatively dictate an appropriate measurement methodology. In the longer term, the continual increases in the power and sophistication of modern computational techniques will permit us to simulate complex physico-chemical processes in an ever more realistic manner. The result will be a continual decrease in the need for physical testing. In the combustion area, of which incineration is a subfield, computer simulation have been an extremely active research area3• It should be emphasized that the data base for the combustion of organic fuels is to a large extent that which 2 |