Theoretical study on the HACA chemistry of naphthalenyl radicals and acetylene: The formation of C12H8, C14H8, and C14H10 species

The hydrogen-abstraction-C₂H₂-addition (HACA) chemistry of naphthalenyl radicals has been studied extensively, but there is a significant discrepancy in product distributions reported or predicted in literature regarding appearance of C₁₄H₈ and C₁₄H₁₀ species. Starting from ab initio calculations, a comprehensive theoretical model describing the HACA chemistry of both 1- and 2-naphthalenyl radicals is generated. Pressure-dependent kinetics are considered in the C₁₂H₉, C₁₄H₉, and C₁₄H₁₁ potential energy surfaces including formally direct well-skipping pathways. On the C₁₂H₉ PES, reaction pathways were found connecting two entry points: 1-naphthalenyl (1-C₁₀H₇) + acetylene (C₂H₂) and 2-C₁₀H₇ + C₂H₂. A significant amount of acenaphthylene is predicted to be formed from 2-C₁₀H₇ + C₂H₂, and the appearance of C₁₄H₈ isomers is predicted in the model simulation, consistent with high-temperature experimental results from Parker et al. At 1500 K, 1-C₁₀H₇ + C₂H₂ mostly generates acenaphthylene through a formally direct pathway, which predicted selectivity of 66% at 30 Torr and 56% at 300 Torr. The reaction of 2-C₁₀H₇ with C₂H₂ at 1500 K yields 2-ethynylnaphthalene as the most dominant product, followed by acenaphthylene mainly generated via isomerization of 2-C₁₀H₇ to 1-C₁₀H₇. Both the 1-C₁₀H₇ and 2-C₁₀H₇ reactions with C₂H₂ form some C₁₄H₈ products, but negligible phenanthrene and anthracene formation is predicted at 1500 K. A rate-of-production analysis reveals that C₁₄H₈ formation is strongly affected by the rates of H-abstraction from acenaphthylene, 1-ethynylnaphthalene, and 2-ethynylnaphthalene, so the kinetics of these reactions are accurately calculated at the high level G3(MP2,CC)//B3LYP/6-311G^** level of theory. At intermediate temperatures like 800 K, acenaphthylene + H are the leading bimolecular products of 1-C₁₀H₇ + C₂H₂, and 1-acenaphthenyl radical is the most abundant C₁₂H₉ isomer due to its stability. The predicted product distribution of 2-C₁₀H₇ + C₂H₂ at 800 K, in contrast to the results of Parker et al is predicted to consist primarily of species containing three fused benzene rings—for example, phenanthrene and anthracene—as the leading products, indicating HACA chemistry is valid from two to three ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons under some conditions. Further experiments are needed for validation.     

Ionization efficiencies of C3H6, C4H8, C6H12, C2H6O,and C3H8O isomers

Ionization efficiencies of 14 organic compounds have been measured in the wavelength region from 105 to 134nm using an ionization chamber. The compounds examined are cyclopropane, propylene, l-butene, isobutene, cis-and trans-2-butenes, cyclohexane, 1-hexane, tetramethylethylene, ethyl alcohol, dimethyl ether, n-, and iso-propyl alcohol, and ethyl methyl ether. The ionization efficiencies of cyclopropane and cyclohexane monotonically increase with increasing photon energy, but those for the others show a peak or a shoulder in the wavelength region of the present work.