The kinetics of ClO formation in the flash photolysis of chlorine–oxygen mixtures

The production of ClOO and ClO radicals following the flash photolysis of chlorine + oxygen mixtures has been studied. For the mechanism the following kinetic parameters were measured: k₃K = 1.3 × 10¹⁰ l²/mol²·sec; k₂/k₃ = 17; and k₃/?(ClOO; 250 nm) = 9.7 × 10⁵ cm/sec. Then k₃ = 5.9 × 10⁹ l/mol·sec, k₂ = 1.0 × 10¹¹ l/mol·sec, and ?(ClOO; 250 nm) = 6.1 × 10³ l/mol·cm. From limits established for the equilibrium constant K, ΔH°_f (ClOO) = 94 ± 2 kJ/mol.     

Multiconfigurational study on the synchronous mechanisms of the ClO self-reaction leading to Cl or Cl<Subscript>2</Subscript>

For studying the adiabatic and nonadiabatic mechanisms of the ClO (X ²Π) + ClO (X ²Π) → ClOOCl → 2Cl (² P _u) + O₂ (X ³Σ _g ⁻) reaction (1) and the ClO (X ²Π) + ClO (X ²Π) → ClOOCl → Cl₂ (X ¹Σ _g ⁺) + O₂ (X ³Σ _g ⁻) reaction (2), we calculated, by partial geometry optimizations under the C₂ constraint, the O–O and O–Cl dissociation potential energy curves (PECs) from the five low-lying states of ClOOCl at the CASPT2 level. The CASSCF minimum-energy crossing point (MECP) between the potential energy surfaces of the 1 ¹A ground state [correlating with the product of reaction (1)] and the 1 ³B state [correlating with the product of reaction (2)] states was also determined. Based on the CAS calculation results (PECs, energies, and spin–orbit coupling at the MECP), we predict that reaction (1) occurs along pathway 1: ClO (X ²Π) + ClO (X ²Π) → ClOOCl (1 ¹A) → 2Cl (² P _u) + O₂ (X ³Σ _g ⁻) and that reaction (2) occurs along pathway 2: ClO (X ²Π) + ClO (X ²Π) → ClOOCl (1 ¹A) → 1 ¹A/1 ³B MECP (142.4 cm⁻¹) → ClOOCl (1 ³B) → Cl₂ (X ¹Σ _g ⁺) + O₂ (X ³Σ _g ⁻). The needed energies (relative to the reactant) for pathways 1 and 2 are predicted to be 5.3 and 11.1 kcal/mol, respectively, which indicates that reaction (1) is more favorable than reaction (2). The present work supports the traditional photochemical model for ozone degradation: ClOOCl (1 ¹A), formed by two ClO (X ²Π), can directly produce O₂ plus two Cl atoms.     

Thermochemistry of chlorine‐containing hydrocarbons related to waste combustion

The thermochemistry of 25 chlorinated compounds potentially involved in chemical reactions related to waste combustion has been calculated using ab initio methods. Some of these species have never been reported in the literature. To check the validity of our calculations, 11 additional brominated analogues were also calculated. The thermochemical properties of these compounds were used in reaction kinetic models designed to estimate the performance of waste incinerators. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 41: 113–122, 2009     

Density functional methods in the study of oxygen transfer reactions

The oxygen transfer reactions from heterocyclic compounds such as oxaziridine, methyldioxirane and ethylene oxide to ethylene and phosphine have been studied using different computational methods, and the results have been compared to those obtained with CASPT2 and CBS-QB3 methods. The results show that the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) functionals BLYP and PBEPBE, highly underestimate the barriers. On the other hand, the hybrid meta-GGA functionals (BB1K, M05 and M05-2X) and BHandHLYP tend to overestimate the barriers. Finally, the B3LYP and OPBE functionals provide reasonable barriers. Nevertheless, none of the tested functionals describes all the studied reactions with the same accuracy.     

Density functional study of hydrogen‐bonded acetonitrile–water complex

We report the interaction of acetonitrile with one, two, and three water molecules using the Density Functional Theory method and the 6‐31+G* basis set. Different conformers were studied and the most stable conformer of acetonitrile–(water)_n complex has total energies –209.1922504, –285.6224478, and –362.068728 hartrees with one, two, and three water molecules, respectively. The corresponding binding energy for these three structures is 4.52, 8.34, and 22.48 kcal/mol. The hydrogen‐bonding results in blue, blue, and redshift in C?N stretching mode in acetonitrile with one, two, and three water molecules, respectively, whereas there was a redshift in O? H symmetric stretching mode of water. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2005     

Density functional study of indole–pyrrole heterodimer potential energy hypersurface

A density‐functional study of indole–pyrrole heterodimer potential energy hypersurface (PES) was performed. Eight stationary points were located on the B3LYP/6‐31++G(d,p) PES, three of which correspond to real minima, all of them being characterized with an N? H … π type hydrogen bonding. In two of these minima (the local ones), pyrrole subunit acts as a hydrogen bond proton donor, while the global minimum corresponds to indole–H … π(‐pyrrole) arrangement. Besides the interaction and dissociation energies corrected for BSSE and the monomer relaxation energies and the relevant structural parameters, anharmonic N? H and N? H … π vibrational frequencies were calculated for various N? H oscillators involved in this interaction from the 1‐D DFT vibrational potentials. On the basis of anharmonic vibrational frequency analysis, it was concluded that the two types of N? H … π hydrogen bonded dimers (indole vs. pyrrole being a proton donor) should be distinguishable with spectroscopic methods. Various contributions to the overall anharmonic frequency shifts upon hydrogen bonding were calculated and discussed as well. The charge field perturbation (CFP) technique was employed to study the electrostatic + polarization influence of the proton accepting unit on the N? H(… π) vibrational potential. The second‐order perturbation theory analysis (SOPT) of the Fock matrix (i.e., its Kohn–Sham analog) within the natural bond orbital (NBO) basis, as well as various NBO deletion analyses revealed an essentially one‐directional charge transfer (CT) of a π(C? C) → σ*(N? H) type in the case of all three minima. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2003     

Density functional study of lithium-aromatic sandwich compounds and their crystals

Using density functional theory, we have theoretically studied the formation of neutral lithium-aromatic complexes R-nLi and R-nLi-R, where R is benzene, naphthalene, or pyrene. We first find that the maximum number of lithium atoms n in the complexes increases with the size of R. In addition, pyrene favors the sandwich compound R-4Li-R over R-4Li more than three times that of the corresponding tendency for benzene, strongly suggesting the possible existence of oligomer (R-4Li)x. We have also investigated energetics and band structures of infinite one-dimensional crystals of R-nLi, finding them metallic. Detailed analysis of the electronic structure shows that all these observations are related to the strong electrostatic interaction among the species, which is originated from the charge transfer from Li atoms to the aromatic rings. In addition, it is shown that the pyrene crystal is mechanically stable with respect to deformation. This also suggests the possibility of its existence, which, in turn, holds potential application in lithium storage in respect to its large Li/C ratio.     

Density functional studies of cation–water complexes

By using density functional ab initio techniques the equilibrium structure, binding energy, and electronic distribution were determined for [X(H₂O)_n]^+k. Specifically, when X = H, Li, and Na, k=+1 and when k=+2, X = Be and Mg. In all cases the number of water molecules varies from one through four. A correlation between the distribution of the positive charge and the binding energy of the complex was encountered. A connection between simple arguments used to describe solvation in the bulk and the results obtained here for clusters was established. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Comput Chem 21: 63–68, 2000     

Density functional studies on the thermal aryl migration in beta-dicarbonyl ylides and related compounds

The potential energy surfaces for the unimolecular rearrangement reactions of beta-dicarbonyl ylides and beta-carbonylimidoyl ylides have been studied using the density functional method. All of the stationary points were determined at the B3LYP/LANL2DZdp level of theory. Four kinds of beta-dicarbonyl ylide species containing fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine have been chosen in this work as model reactants. Also, five beta-carbonylimidoyl ylide molecules bearing nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, stibium, and bismuth have been used in the present study. In the latter reactions, two different reaction pathways have been proposed: (1) a 1,2-aryl shift to the pnicogen element and (2) A 1,2-aryl shift to the oxygen atom. That is, path 1 is reactant-->TS-1-->Pro-1 and path 2 is reactant-->TS-2-->Pro-2. Our theoretical findings strongly suggest that all intramolecular aryl migration reactions proceed via a one-step (concerted) reaction path. For the beta-dicarbonyl ylide species, the smaller the atomic number of the halogen atom, the lower the barrier height, the larger the reaction enthalpy, and, in turn, the easier it is to undergo the intramolecular aryl migration under thermal conditions. Alternatively, the heavier the pnicogen element in the beta-carbonylimidoyl ylides, the smaller the barrier height, and the larger the migration reaction enthalpy, even under thermal conditions. The results obtained allow a number of predictions to be made.     

Density functional evaluation and a feasibility study of intramolecular thione–thiol tautomerization

Performance of various density functionals for use in geometry and energetics calculation of thiocarbonyl systems is evaluated. The three biologically significant systems such as 2‐methyl‐3‐thiosemicarbazide, 1‐acetyl‐2‐thiohydantoin and bornane‐2‐thione are selected for the geometry analysis. Energy of tautomerization of thioacetone and enthalpy of formation of 2‐thiohydantoin are considered for analyzing the performance in energetics. Minnesota functionals such as M05‐2X, M06‐2X and range separated hybrid functional wB97 give best results in both geometry and energetics calculations. Studies on basis set effect showed reliable performance by 6‐31 + G* and 6‐31++G** over higher basis sets. Feasibility of tautomerization in the aforementioned thiones has been investigated using the best performing density functionals. The proposed thione–thiol tautomerization step during PPC‐DC catalyzed decarboxylation reaction has also been investigated and the computed high energy barrier shows less feasibility of the reaction.     

Density functional theory for Jahn–Teller systems

The first discussion of the dynamics of Jahn–Teller systems in terms of the electronic density as the fundamental variable was given by W.J. Clinton in 1960, where the degenerate electronic configuration of a Jahn–Teller molecule was interpreted in terms of the infinite number of ways in which the charge distribution can be oriented for the same energy. The moving nuclear framework serves as the perturbation necessary to define the orientation of the charge density, with no activation energy required to put the charge cloud into motion. Recently, this notion of the electronic charge cloud in a Jahn–Teller molecule sweeping out the potential surface over which the nuclei move has found mathematical expression in our work in terms of a generalized electronic current density in nuclear-coordinate space [N. Sukumar and B.M. Deb, Int. J. Quantum Chem. 40 , 501 (1991)]. The introduction of the electronic phase as a function of both electronic and nuclear coordinates, in addition to the electronic density, is a crucial component of this formulation. In the present work, the density-based treatment is extended to the nonadiabatic situation, with the Born couplings interpreted as nonadiabatic currents in parameter space. Abelian and non-Abelian gauge transformations of these currents are discussed. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Density functional theory study of 13C NMR chemical shift of chlorinated compounds

The use of the standard density functional theory (DFT) leads to an overestimation of the paramagnetic contribution and underestimation of the shielding constants, especially for chlorinated carbon nuclei. For that reason, the predictions of chlorinated compounds often yield too high chemical shift values. In this study, the WC04 functional is shown to be capable of reducing the overestimation of the chemical shift of Cl‐bonded carbons in standard DFT functionals and to show a good performance in the prediction of ¹³C NMR chemical shifts of chlorinated organic compounds. The capability is attributed to the minimization of the contributions that intensively increase the chemical shift in the WC04. Extensive computations and analyses were performed to search for the optimal procedure for WC04. The B3LYP and mPW1PW91 standard functionals were also used to evaluate the performance. Through detailed comparisons between the basis set effects and the solvent effects on the results, the gas‐phase GIAO/WC04/6‐311+G(2d,p)//B3LYP/6‐31+G(d,p) was found to be specifically suitable for the prediction of ¹³C NMR chemical shifts of chlorides in both chlorinated and non‐chlorinated carbons. Further tests with eight molecules in the probe set sufficiently confirmed that WC04 was undoubtedly effective for accurately predicting ¹³C NMR chemical shifts of chlorinated organic compounds. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Density functional theory study of electroreductive hydrocoupling of alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds

[reaction: see text] The electroreductive hydrocoupling of methyl cinnamate, methyl crotonate, cumarin, and benzalacetone was studied by DFT (B3LYP/6-311++ G**) calculations. The computational outcomes for the transition states in the hydrocoupling of anion radicals generated by a one-electron transfer to the alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds well agree with the diastereoselectivities in the experimental results previously reported.     

Density functional theory study of difluorovinylidene isomerization to difluoroacetylene

The isomerization of difluorovinylidene: C = CF₂ into difluoroacetylene FCCF was systematically studied using density functional theory (DFT) methods with the 6-311 + G(2 p, 2 p) Gaussian-type basis set. The computed geometries for the reactant, product, and transition state as well as the enthalpy and reaction barrier were compared with the previously computed values obtained by the LSD and NLSD DFT methods and the ab initio CCSD method. The suitability of some of the DFT methods for the computation of this system was discussed and the best estimated computational data were selected. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 62: 515–520, 1997     

Density functional treatment of water–carbon dioxide van der waals complex

LCGTO–LSD and LCGTO–NLSD methods have been tested for the study of water–carbon dioxide weakly bound binary complex. Different local and nonlocal exchange-correlation energy functionals and many grid radial points have been used. Results show that both nonlocal corrections and a large number of radial points in the grid are mandatory for well reproducing the experimental data. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.