Detailed chemical kinetic modeling of JP-10 (exo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene) high-temperature oxidation: Exploring the role of biradical species in initial decomposition steps

DFT exchange: sharing perspectives on the workhorse of quantum chemistry and materials science

In this paper, the history, present status, and future of density-functional theory (DFT) is informally reviewed and discussed by 70 workers in the field, including molecular scientists, materials scientists, method developers and practitioners. The format of the paper is that of a roundtable discussion, in which the participants express and exchange views on DFT in the form of 302 individual contributions, formulated as responses to a preset list of 26 questions. Supported by a bibliography of 777 entries, the paper represents a broad snapshot of DFT, anno 2022.

Combined Spectroscopic and Computational Investigation on the Oxidation of exo-Tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene (JP-10; C10H16) Doped with Titanium-Aluminum-Boron Reactive Metal Nanopowder

We report the results on the combustion of single, levitated droplets of exo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene (JP-10) doped with titanium-aluminum-boron (Ti-Al-B) reactive metal nanopowders (RMNPs) in an oxygen (60%)-argon (40%) atmosphere by exploiting an ultrasonic levitator with droplets ignited by a carbon dioxide laser. Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) emission spectroscopy revealed the presence of gas-phase aluminum (Al) and titanium (Ti) atoms. These atoms can be oxidized in the gas phase by molecular oxygen to form spectroscopically detected aluminum monoxide (AlO) and titanium monoxide (TiO) transients. Analysis of the optical ignition videos supports that the nanoparticles are ignited before JP-10. The detection of boron monoxide (BO) further proposes an active surface chemistry through the oxidation of the RMNPs and the release of at least BO into the gas phase. The oxidation of gas-phase BO by molecular oxygen to boron dioxide (BO₂) plus atomic oxygen might operate in the gas phase, although the involvement of surface oxidation processes of RMNPs to BO₂ cannot be discounted. The UV-vis emission spectra also revealed the key reactive intermediates (OH, CH, C₂, and HCO) of the oxidation of JP-10. Electronic structure calculations reveal that the presence of reactive radicals has a profound impact on the oxidation of JP-10. Although titanium monoxide (TiO) reacts to produce titanium dioxide (TiO₂), it does not engage in an active JP-10 chemistry as all abstraction pathways are endoergic by more than 217 kJ mol^-1. This is similar for atomic aluminum and titanium, whose hydrogen abstraction reactions from JP-10 were revealed to be endoergic by at least 77 kJ mol^-1. Therefore, aluminum and titanium react preferentially with molecular oxygen to produce their monoxides. However, the formation of BO, AlO, and BO₂ supplies a pool of highly reactive radicals, which can abstract hydrogen from JP-10 via transition states ranging from only 1 to 5 kJ mol^-1 above the separated reactants, forming JP-10 radicals along with the hydrogen abstraction products (boron hydride oxide, aluminum monohydroxide, and metaboric acid) in the overall exoergic reactions. These abstraction barriers are well below the barriers of abstractions for ground-state atomic oxygen and molecular oxygen. In this sense, gas-phase BO, AlO, and BO₂ catalyze the oxidation of gas-phase JP-10 via hydrogen abstraction, forming highly reactive JP-10 radicals. Overall, the addition of RMNPs to JP-10 not only provides a higher energy density fuel but is also expected to lead to shorter ignition delays compared to pure JP-10 due to the highly reactive pool of radicals (BO, AlO, and BO₂) formed in the initial stage of the oxidation process.

An automatized workflow from molecular dynamic simulation to quantum chemical methods to identify elementary reactions and compute reaction constants

We present an automatized workflow which, starting from molecular dynamics simulations, identifies reaction events, filters them, and prepares them for accurate quantum chemical calculations using, for example, Density Functional Theory (DFT) or Coupled Cluster methods. The capabilities of the automatized workflow are demonstrated by the example of simulations for the combustion of some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). It is shown how key elementary reaction candidates are filtered out of a much larger set of redundant reactions and refined further. The molecular species in question are optimized using DFT and reaction energies, barrier heights, and reaction rates are calculated. The setup is general enough to include at this stage configurational sampling, which can be exploited in the future. Using the introduced machinery, we investigate how the observed reaction types depend on the gas atmosphere used in the molecular dynamics simulation. For the re-optimization on the DFT level, we show how the additional information needed to switch from reactive force-field to electronic structure calculations can be filled in and study how well ReaxFF and DFT agree with each other and shine light on the perspective of using more accurate semi-empirical methods in the MD simulation.

Reaction Profiles and Kinetics for Radical-Radical Hydrogen Abstraction via Multireference Coupled Cluster Theory

Radical-radical abstractions in hydrocarbon oxidation chemistry are disproportionation reactions that are generally exothermic with little or no barrier yet are underappreciated and poorly studied. Such challenging multireference electronic structure problems are tackled here using the recently developed state-specific multireference coupled cluster methods Mk-MRCCSD and Mk-MRCCSD(T), as well as the companion perturbation theory Mk-MRPT2 and the established MRCISD, MRCISD+Q, and CASPT2 approaches. Reaction paths are investigated for five prototypes involving radical-radical hydrogen abstraction: H + BeH → H₂+ Be, H + NH₂ → H₂ + NH, CH₃ + C₂H₅ → CH₄ + C₂H₄, H + C₂H₅ → H₂ + C₂H₄, and H + HCO → H₂ + CO. Full configuration interaction (FCI) benchmark computations for the H + BeH, H + NH₂, and H + HCO reactions prove that Mk-MRCCSD(T) provides superior accuracy for the interaction energies in the entrance channel, with mean absolute errors less than 0.3 kcal mol^-1 and percentage deviations less than 10% over the fragment separations of relevance to kinetics. To facilitate combustion studies, energetics for the CH₃ + C₂H₅, H + C₂H₅, and H + HCO reactions were computed at each level of theory with correlation-consistent basis sets (cc-pVXZ, X = T, Q, 5) and extrapolated to the complete basis set (CBS) limit. These CBS energies were coupled with CASPT2 projected vibrational frequencies along a minimum energy path to obtain rate constants for these three reactions. The rigorous Mk-MRCCSD(T)/CBS results demonstrate unequivocally that these three reactions proceed with no barrier in the entrance channel, contrary to some earlier predictions. Mk-MRCCSD(T) also reveals that the economical CASPT2 method performs well for large interfragment separations but may deteriorate substantially at shorter distances.

The Lowest-Energy Isomer of C2Si2H4 Is a Bridged Ring: Reinterpretation of the Spectroscopic Data Based on DFT and Coupled-Cluster Calculations

The lowest-energy isomer of C 2 Si 2 H 4 is determined by high-accuracy ab initio calculations to be the bridged four-membered ring 1,2-didehydro-1,3-disilabicyclo[1.1.0]butane (1), contrary to prior theoretical and experimental studies favoring the three-member ring silylsilacyclopropenylidene (2). These and eight other low-lying minima on the potential energy surface are characterized and ordered by energy using the CCSD(T) method with complete basis set extrapolation, and the resulting benchmark-quality set of relative isomer energies is used to evaluate the performance of several comparatively inexpensive approaches based on many-body perturbation theory and density functional theory (DFT). Double-hybrid DFT methods are found to provide an exceptional balance of accuracy and efficiency for energy-ordering isomers. Free energy profiles are developed to reason the relatively large abundance of isomer 2 observed in previous measurements. Infrared spectra and photolysis reaction mechanisms are modeled for isomers 1 and 2, providing additional insight about previously reported spectra and photoisomerization channels.

A vacuum ultraviolet photoionization study on high-temperature decomposition of JP-10 (exo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene)

High-temperature pyrolysis of JP-10 in flow reactors were performed both experimentally and theoretically. Dozens of products were detected and the decomposition pathways of JP-10 were discussed.

Aerobic oxidation of methanol to formic acid on Au8-: benchmark analysis based on completely renormalized coupled-cluster and density functional theory calculations

The left-eigenstate completely renormalized coupled-cluster (CC) method with singles, doubles, and noniterative triples [CR-CC(2,3)] and a few representative density functional theory (DFT) approaches have been applied to methanol oxidation to formic acid on a Au8(-) cluster, which is a model for aerobic oxidations on gold nanoparticles. It is demonstrated that CR-CC(2,3) supports the previous exothermic reaction mechanism, placing the initial rate-determining transition state, which corresponds to hydrogen transfer from the methoxy species to the molecular oxygen, at about 20 kcal/mol above the reactants, less than 40 kcal/mol above the O2 and CH3O(-) species coadsorbed on Au8(-), and considerably above the remaining two transition states along the reaction pathway. The DFT calculations using the previously exploited M06 hybrid functional show reasonable agreement with CR-CC(2,3), but B3LYP offers additional improvements in the description of the relevant activation energies. Pure functionals, including M06-L, BP86, and TPSS, do not work well, significantly underestimating the activation barriers, but dispersion corrections, as in B97-D, bring the results closer to the M06 accuracy level.