Thermal Rate Coefficients and Kinetic Isotope Effects for the Reaction OH + CH4 → H2O + CH3 on an ab Initio-Based Potential Energy Surface

New Stable and Fast Ring-Polymer Molecular Dynamics for Calculating Bimolecular Rate Coefficients with an Example of OH + CH4

The accurate and efficient calculation of the rate coefficients of chemical reactions is a key issue in the research of chemical dynamics. In this work, by applying the dimension-free ultrastable Cayley propagator, the thermal rate coefficients of a prototypic high dimensional chemical reaction OH + CH₄ → H₂O + CH₃ in the temperature range of 200 to 1500 K are investigated with ring polymer molecular dynamics (RPMD) on a highly accurate full-dimensional potential energy surface. Kinetic isotope effects (KIEs) for three isotopologues of the title reaction are also studied. The results demonstrate excellent agreement with experimental data, even in the deep tunneling region. Especially, the Cayley propagator shows a high calculation efficiency with little loss of accuracy. The present results confirmed the applicability of the RPMD method, particularly the speed-up using a Cayley propagator, in theoretical calculations of bimolecular reaction rates.

Effect of Water and Formic Acid on ·OH + CH4 Reaction: An Ab Initio/DFT Study

In this work, we used ab initio/DFT method coupled with statistical rate theory to answer the question of whether or not formic acid (HCOOH) and water molecules can catalyze the most important atmospheric and combustion prototype reaction, i.e., ·OH (OH radical) + CH4. The potential energy surface for ·OH + CH4 and ·OH + CH4 (+X) (X = HCOOH, H2O) reactions were calculated using the combination of hybrid-density functional theory and coupled-cluster theory with Pople basis set [(CCSD(T)/ 6-311++G(3df,3pd)//M06-2X/6-311++G(3df,3pd)]. The results of this study show that the catalytic effect of HCOOH (FA) and water molecules on the ·OH + CH4 reaction has a major impact when the concentration of FA and H2O is not included. In this situation the rate constants for the CH4 + HO···HCOOH (3 × 10−9 cm3 molecule−1 s−1) reaction is ~105 times and for CH4 + H2O···HO reaction (3 × 10−14 cm3 molecule−1 s−1 at 300 K) is ~20 times higher than ·OH + CH4 (~6 × 10−15 cm3 molecule−1 s−1). However, the total effective rate constants, which include the concentration of both species in the kinetic calculation has no effect under atmospheric condition. As a result, the total effective reaction rate constants are smaller. The rate constants when taking the account of the FA and water for CH4 + HO···HCOOH (4.1 × 10−22 cm3 molecule−1 s−1) is at least seven orders magnitude and for the CH4 + H2O···HO (7.6 × 10−17 cm3 molecule−1 s−1) is two orders magnitude smaller than ·OH + CH4 reaction. These results are also consistent with previous experimental and theoretical studies on similar reaction systems. This study helps to understand how FA and water molecules change the reaction kinetic under atmospheric conditions for ·OH + CH4 reaction.

Multi-configuration electron-nuclear dynamics: An open-shell approach

The multi-configuration electron-nuclear dynamics for open shell systems with a spin-unrestricted formalism is described. The mean fields are evaluated using second-order reduced density matrices for electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom. Applications to light-element diatomics including equilibrium geometries, electronic energies, dipole moments, and absorption spectra are presented. The von Neumann entropies for different spin states of a LiH molecule are compared.

Multistructural Variational Reaction Kinetics of the Simplest Unsaturated Methyl Ester: H-Abstraction from Methyl Acrylate by H, OH, CH3, and HO2 Radicals

The H-abstraction reaction kinetics of methyl acrylate (MA) + H/OH/CH₃/HO₂ radicals have been investigated theoretically in the present work. For these reactions, the reaction energies and barrier heights are first computed using several density functionals and compared to the coupled cluster CCSD(T)-F12/jun-cc-pVTZ benchmark calculations. The M062X/maug-cc-pVTZ method shows the best performance with the smallest mean unsigned deviation (MUD) of 0.42 kcal mol^-1. Combined with the electronic structure calculations using the M062X/maug-cc-pVTZ method, the multistructural canonical variational transition-state theory (MS-CVT) with small-curvature tunneling (SCT) is employed to calculate the reaction rate constants at 500-2000 K. The variational effect is between 0.56 and 1.0, the multistructural torsional anharmonicity factor ranges from 0.004 to 4.57, and the tunneling coefficient is in the range of 0.5-4.70. Notably, given the existence of reactant complexes (RCs) between reactants and transition states for the reaction systems MA + OH/HO₂, we further compare the rate constants under the low-pressure limit (LPL) kinetic model, which treats the reaction as a single-step process and neglects RCs, and the pre-equilibrium model, which takes RCs into account in the reaction and treats the reaction as a two-step process. The rate constants calculated by these two models are similar within the combustion temperature range, and apparent differences occur at lower temperatures. In addition, we determine the branching ratios as a function of temperature and find that the methyl site (S3) abstractions by OH and H radicals are dominant in the low- and high-temperature ranges, respectively. Moreover, we update the kinetic model with the calculated H-abstraction rate constants to simulate the ignition delay times of MA. The simulations of the updated model are in good agreement with experimental results. The accurate reaction kinetics determined in this work are useful for the understanding and prediction of consumption branching fractions and ignition properties of the unsaturated methyl esters.