The Reinvestigation of the Kinetics of the Metathesis Reactions t-C4H9• + HBr (HI) → i-C4H10 + Br• (I•) and of the t-C4H9• Free Radical Thermochemistry

Unveiling glutamic acid-functionalized LDHs: understanding the Cr(VI) removal mechanism from microscopic and macroscopic view points

Interlayer functionalization modulation is essential for modifying LDHs and improving their selectivity and adsorption capacity for target pollutants. In this work, Glu@NiFe-LDH was synthesized using a simple one-step hydrothermal method and tested for its ability to remove CrO42- from wastewater. The modification significantly increased the composite material's removal ability by 2-3 times, up to 98.36 mg g-1. The behavior of CrO42- adsorption on Glu@NiFe-LDH was further studied by adjusting the affecting factors (i.e., temperature, pH, contact time, initial concentration, and interfering substance), and the adsorption behavior was confirmed as a spontaneous and chemisorption process. And the result was that Glu@NiFe-LDH demonstrated high capacity, efficiency, stability, and selectivity for the adsorption of CrO42- in a single electrolyte and natural water containing competing anions. Furthermore, molecular dynamics simulations (NVT ensemble) were employed to further reveal the mechanism of glutamic acid modification on LDH at the microscopic scale. Additionally, the IRI analysis method revealed the mechanism of weak interaction between glutamic acid molecules and CrO42-. This study provides a detailed understanding of the intercalation mechanism involved in the amino acid modification of LDHs. It explains the adsorption mechanism of metal oxo-acid radicals by amino acid-modified LDHs from a theoretical perspective. The findings offer experiments and a theoretical basis for designing targeted adsorbents in the future.

Theoretical vibrational mode-specific dynamics studies for the HBr + C2H5 reaction

A quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) study is performed for the HBr + C₂H₅ multi-channel reaction using a recently-developed high-level ab initio full-dimensional spin-orbit-corrected potential energy surface (PES) by exciting five different vibrational modes of reactants at five collision energies. The effect of the normal-mode excitations on the reactivity, the mechanism, and the post-reaction energy flow is followed. A significant decrease of the reactivity caused by the longer initial distances of the reactants for the v_HBr = 1 reaction at low collision energy (E_coll) is observed due to the intramolecular vibrational-energy redistribution and the classical nature of the QCT method. All of the three reaction pathways (H-abstraction, Br-abstraction, and H-exchange) are intensely promoted when the HBr-stretching mode is excited. No clear promotion is observed when excitation is imposed to C₂H₅ except that asymmetric CH-stretching helps the H-exchange process. The enhancement effect of the excitation in the HBr vibrational mode is found to be much more effective than increasing the translational energy, in contrast to the HBr + CH₃ reaction. The forward scattering mechanism can be clearly promoted by the excitation of the HBr-stretching mode, or by the high collision energy, indicating the dominance of the direct stripping mechanism in these cases. At low collision energy with no excitation or excitation of any vibrational mode of C₂H₅, the forward scattering feature is less obvious. At E_coll = 1 kcal mol^-1, when HBr-stretching is excited, the product clearly gains more relative translational energy. However, it is interesting to see that when the excitation is in C₂H₅, the effect is the opposite, i.e., the product gains less relative translational energy compared to the ground-state reaction.

Extension of Structure-Reactivity Correlations for the Hydrogen Abstraction Reaction by Bromine Atom and Comparison to Chlorine Atom and Hydroxyl Radical

Recently we presented structure-reactivity correlations for the gas-phase ambient-temperature rate constants for hydrogen abstraction from sp(3)-hybridized carbon by chlorine atom and hydroxyl radical (Cl•/HO• + HCR3 → HCl/HOH + •CR3); the reaction enthalpy effect was represented by the independent variable ΔrH and the "polar effect" by the independent variables F and R, the Hammett constants for field/inductive and resonance effects. Both these reactions are predominantly exothermic and have early transition states. Here, we present a parallel treatment for Br• whose reaction is significantly endothermic with a correspondingly late transition state. Despite lower expectations because the available database is less extensive and much more scattered and because long temperature extrapolations are often required, the resulting least-squares fit (log k298,Br = -0.147 ΔrH - 4.32 ΣF - 4.28 ΣR - 12.38 with r(2) = 0.92) was modestly successful and useful for initial predictions. The coefficient of ΔrH was ∼4-fold greater, indicative of the change from an early to a late transition state; meanwhile the sizable coefficients of ΣF and ΣR indicate the persistence of the "polar effect". Although the mean unsigned deviation of 0.79 log k298 units is rather large, it must be considered in the context of a total span of over 15 log units in the data set. The major outliers are briefly discussed.