Potential energy profiles of the geometric isomerization and the thermal decomposition of diphosphene HP=PH in the ground and excited electronic states

Summary The geometric isomerization and the dehydrogenation of HP=PH in the ground and some low-lying excited states are investigated by theoretical calculations. The reaction paths are traced by either the CASSCF or UHF-SCF calculations using the 6-31G(d,p) basis functions, and the accompanying energy changes are calculated by the MRD-CI method employing the 5s3p1d]/2s1p] basis functions. The barrier heights for the trans-to-cis isomerization, by the planar inversion and the nonplanar twisting, in the ground state are calculated to be 265 and 144 kJ/mol (with the vibrational zero-point energy corrections), respectively. The latter barrier is noticeably lower than the H-P and the P-P bond dissociation energies oftrans-HP=PH (¹A_g), which are 304 and 271 kJ/mol, respectively. The ground-state HP₂ radical (²A'), which is to be formed by the dehydrogenation of HP=PH, should suffer further decomposition into P₂ (¹ _g ⁺ ) and H with an activation energy of 139 kJ/mol. The lowest excited state of HP₂ is found to be a hydrogen-bridged 3-electron system (²A₂) having an isosceles triangle structure. It has proved to be formed by the dehydrogenation of the lowest excited singlet state (¹B) of HP=PH via a transition state which lies 194 kJ/mol above the¹B state. The excited HP₂ (²A₂) is state-correlated with P₂ (³_u)+H.