Thermochemistry and kinetics of the trans-N2H2+N reaction

The atmospheric relevance of primary alcohols and imidogen reactions

Organic alcohols as very volatile compounds play a crucial role in the air quality of the atmosphere. So, the removal processes of such compounds are an important atmospheric challenge. The main goal of this research is to discover the atmospheric relevance of degradation paths of linear alcohols by imidogen with the aid of simulation by quantum mechanical (QM) methods. To this end, we combine broad mechanistic and kinetic results to get more accurate information and to have a deeper insight into the behavior of the designed reactions. Thus, the main and necessary reaction pathways are explored by well-behaved QM methods for complete elucidation of the studying gaseous reactions. Moreover, the potential energy surfaces as  a main factor are computed for easier judging of the most probable pathways in the simulated reactions. Our attempt to find the occurrence of the considered reactions in the atmospheric conditions is completed by precisely evaluating the rate constants of all elementary reactions. All of the computed bimolecular rate constants have a positive dependency on both temperature and pressure. The kinetic results show that H-abstraction from the α carbon is dominant relative to the other sites. Finally, by the results of this study, we conclude that at moderate temperatures and pressures primary alcohols can degrade with imidogen, so they can get atmospheric relevance.

Density Functional Theory Calculation on the Structural, Electronic, and Optical Properties of Fluorene-Based Azo Compounds

In the present work, a theoretical study was carried out to study the molecular structure, harmonic vibrational frequencies, normal force field calculations, and Raman scattering activities for fluorene π-conjugation spacer containing azo-based dye named trans- and cis-bis(9H-fluoren-2-yl)diazene (AzoFL) at density functional theory using B3LYP (Becke-3-Lee-Yang-Parr) functional and 6-31+G(d,p) basis set. The theoretical calculations have also been performed with fluorene and the trans- and cis-isomers of diazene, difluorodiazene by the same method DFT-B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) and basis set. The present DFT calculation shows that the trans-AzoFL is more stable than the cis-AzoFL by 16.33 kcal/mol. We also report the results of new assignments of vibrational frequencies obtained on the basis of the present calculations. Time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) and ZIndo calculations have been performed to study the UV-vis absorption behavior and frontier molecular orbitals for the above-mentioned compounds. The UV-vis spectrum from TD-DFT calculation shows the π-π* transition bands at λmax 423.53 nm (εmax 6.0 × 104 M-1 cm-1) and at λmax 359.45 nm (εmax 1.7 × 104 M-1 cm-1), respectively, for trans- and cis-AzoFL. Compared to parent trans-diazene (λmax 178.97 nm), a significant variation to longer wavelength (∼245 nm) is observed due to the incorporation of the fluorene (FL) ring into the -N=N- backbone. The co-planarity of the two FL rings with the longer N=N bond length compared to the unsubstituted parent diazene indicates the effective red shift due to the extended π-conjugation in trans-AzoFL. The nonplanarity of cis-AzoFL (48.1° tilted about the C-N bond relative to the planar N=N-C bond) reflects its ∼64 nm blue shift compared to that of trans-counterpart.

Thermochemical and Kinetics of CH3SH + H Reactions: The Sensitivity of Coupling the Low and High-Level Methodologies

The reaction system formed by the methanethiol molecule (CH₃SH) and a hydrogen atom was studied via three elementary reactions, two hydrogen abstractions and the C-S bond cleavage (CH₃SH + H → CH₃S + H₂ (R1); → CH₂SH + H₂ (R2); → CH₃ + H₂S (R3)). The stable structures were optimized with various methodologies of the density functional theory and the MP2 method. Two minimum energy paths for each elementary reaction were built using the BB1K and MP2 methodologies, and the electronic properties on the reactants, products, and saddle points were improved with coupled cluster theory with single, double, and connected triple excitations (CCSD(T)) calculations. The sensitivity of coupling the low and high-level methods to calculate the thermochemical and rate constants were analyzed. The thermal rate constants were obtained by means of the improved canonical variational theory (ICVT) and the tunneling corrections were included with the small curvature tunneling (SCT) approach. Our results are in agreement with the previous experimental measurements and the calculated branching ratio for R1:R2:R3 is equal to 0.96:0:0.04, with k_R1 = 9.64 × 10^-13 cm³ molecule^-1 s^-1 at 298 K.

Thermochemical and kinetics studies of the CH3SH+S (3P) hydrogen abstraction and insertion reactions

Sulfur-containing molecules have a significant impact on atmosphere and biosphere. In this work we studied, from the point of view of electronic structure and chemical kinetics methods, the elementary reactions between a methanethiol molecule and a sulfur atom leading to hydrogen abstraction C-S bond cleavage (CH(3)SH+S; R1:→ CH(3)S+SH; R2: → CH(2)SH+SH; R3:→ CH(3)+HS(2)). The geometrical structures of the reactants, products, and saddle points for the three reaction paths were optimized using the BB1K method with the aug-cc-pV(T+d)Z basis set. The thermochemical properties were improved using single point coupled-cluster (CCSD(T)) calculations on the BB1K geometries followed by extrapolation to the complete basis set (CBS) limit. This methodology was previously applied and has given accurate values of thermochemical and kinetics properties when compared to benchmark calculations and experimental data. For each reaction, the thermal rate constants were calculated using the improved canonical variational theory (ICVT) including the zero-curvature (ICVT/ZCT) and small-curvature (ICVT/SCT) tunneling corrections. For comparison, the overall ICVT/SCT reaction rate constant at 300 K obtained with single-point CCSD(T)/CBS calculations for the CH(3)SH+S reaction is approximately 1400 times lower than the isovalent CH(3)SH+O reaction, obtained with CVT/SCT. The reaction path involving the hydrogen abstraction from the thiol group is the most important reactive path in all temperatures.