Theoretical Mechanistic Study on the Ion−Molecule Reactions of CCN+/CNC+ with H2S

Main group cyanides: from hydrogen cyanide to cyanido-complexes

Homoleptic cyanide compounds exist of almost all main group elements. While the alkali metals and alkaline earth metals form cyanide salts, the cyanides of the lighter main group elements occur mainly as covalent compounds. This review gives an overview of the status quo of main group element cyanides and cyanido complexes. Information about syntheses are included as well as applications, special substance properties, bond lengths, spectroscopic characteristics and computations. Cyanide chemistry is presented mainly from the field of inorganic chemistry, but aspects of chemical biology and astrophysics are also discussed in relation to cyano compounds.

Ion−Molecule Reaction Mechanism of SiCN+/SiNC+ + HX (X = H, CH3, F, OH, NH2)

In contrast to the abundant data on the neutral-neutral reactions, little is known about the ion-molecule reactions involving silicon ions. A detailed mechanistic study at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) and CCSD(T)/6-311+G(2df,p) (single-point) computational levels was reported for the reactions of SiCN+/SiNC+ with a series of -bonded molecules HX (X = H, CH3, F, NH2). Together with the recently studied SiCN+/SiNC+ + H2O reactions, all of these reactions have nucleophilic substitution as their major pathway. Insertion is a much slower reaction. By contrast, the known atomic Si+ and C2N+ ion-molecule reactions go by insertion. Generally, the initial gas-phase condensation between SiCN+/SiNC+ and HX (except the nonionic H2) effectively forms the adduct HX...SiCN+/HX...SiNC+. The stability of the adduct increases with the electron-donating ability of X. Even at low temperatures, reactions with the electron donors NH3, H2O, and HF proceed rapidly to generate the fragments SiX+ + HCN (dominant) and SiX+ + HNC (minor). This suggests that such reactions may be useful in the synthesis of novel Si-X bonded species. However, the reactions of SiCN+ with completely saturated CH4 and H2 produce fragments only at high temperatures, and SiNC+ may even be unreactive. The calculated results may be helpful for understanding the chemistry of SiCN-based microelectric and photoelectric processes in addition to astrophysical processes in which the [Si,C,N]+ ion is involved. The results can also provide useful mechanistic information for the analogous ion-molecule reactions of the monovalent silicon-bearing ions.

Theoretical mechanistic study on the ion-molecule reaction of SiCN+/SiNC+ with H2O

The gas-phase ion-molecule reactions play very important roles in interstellar and in plasma chemistry. Motivated by recent astrophysical detection of the SiCN/SiNC radicals and laboratory characterization of some SiCN-containing species, we carried out a detailed potential energy survey on the SiCN+/SiNC(+) + H2O reaction at the Becke's three-parameter Lee-Yang-Parr-B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) and coupled cluster with single, double, and triple excitations-CCSD(T)/6-311 + G(2df,p) (single-point) levels as an attempt towards understanding the SiCN+/SiNC+ reaction mechanisms. In contrast to the carbene-featured analogous CCN+/CNC(+) + H2X (X=O,S) reactions, the title reaction SiCN+/SiNC(+) + H2O are not associated with any competitive silylene-insertion characters. Moreover, the -CN <--> -NC interconversion has a low barrier and plays an important role in determining the final product distributions. This is also in marked difference from the CCN+/CNC+ reaction. It is shown that the isomeric sila-cations SiCN+ and SiNC+ can both react with H2O to barrierlessly generate the major product P1 HOSi(+) + HCN and the minor one P3 HOSi(+) + HNC, whereas other low-lying products such as P2 SiNCO(+) + H2, and P(0) H2NSi(+) + CO are kinetically unfeasible. The high efficiency of the SiCN+/SiNC+ reaction towards H2O and the potential importance of SiCN+/SiNC+ ion chemistry in interstellar and SiCN-based microelectric and photoelectric processes strongly appeals for future laboratory investigations on the SiCN+/SiNC+ chemical reactivity.