Theoretical study of the reactions CF3CH2OCHF2 + OH/Cl and its product radicals and parent ether(CH3CH2OCH3) with OH.

A dual-level direct dynamic method is employed to study the reaction mechanisms of CF3CH2OCHF2 (HFE-245fa2; HFE-245mf) with the OH radicals and Cl atoms. Two hydrogen abstraction channels and two displacement processes are found for each reaction. For further study, the reaction mechanisms of its products (CF3CH2OCF2 and CF3CHOCHF2) and parent ether CH3CH2OCH3 with OH radical are investigated theoretically. The geometries and frequencies of all the stationary points and the minimum energy paths (MEPs) are calculated at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level. The energetic information along the MEPs is further refined at the G3(MP2) level of theory. For reactions CF3CH2OCHF2 + OH/Cl, the calculation indicates that the hydrogen abstraction from --CH2-- group is the dominant reaction channel, and the displacement processes may be negligible because of the high barriers. The standard enthalpies of formation for the reactant CF3CH2OCHF2, and two products CF3CH2OCHF2 and CF3CHOCHF2 are evaluated via group-balanced isodesmic reactions. The rate constants of reactions CF3CH2OCHF2 + OH/Cl and CH3CH2OCH3 + OH are estimated by using the variational transition state theory over a wide range of temperature (200-2000 K). The agreement between the theoretical and experimental rate constants is good in the measured temperature range. From the comparison between the rate constants of the reactions CF3CH2OCHF2 and CH3CH2OCH3 with OH, it is shown that the fluorine substitution decreases the reactivity of the C--H bond.

Theoretical study for the reaction of CH3OCl with Cl atom.

A direct dynamics method is employed to study the kinetics of the multiple channel reaction CH(3)OCl + Cl. The potential energy surface (PES) information is explored from ab initio calculations. Two reaction channels, Cl- and H-abstractions, have been identified. The optimized geometries and frequencies of the stationary points and the minimum-energy paths (MEPs) are calculated at the MP2 level of theory using the 6-311G(d, p) and cc-pVTZ basis sets, respectively. The single-point energies along the MEPs are further refined at the G3(MP2)//MP2/6-311G(d, p), G3//MP2/6-311G(d, p), as well as by the multicoefficient correlation method based on QCISD (MC-QCISD) using the MP2/cc-pVTZ geometries. The enthalpies of formation for the species CH(3)OCl and CH(2)OCl are calculated via isodesmic reactions. The rate constants of the two reaction channels are evaluated by using the variational transition-state theory over a wide range of temperature, 220-2200 K. The calculated rate constants exhibit the slightly negative temperature dependence and show good agreement with the available experimental data at room temperature at the G3(MP2)//MP2/6-311G(d, p) level. The present calculations indicate that the two channels are competitive at low temperatures while H-abstraction plays a more important role with the increase of temperature. The calculated k(1a)/k(1) ratio of 0.5 at 298 K is in general agreement with the experimental one, 0.8 +/- 0.2. The high rate constant for CH(3)OCl + Cl shows that removal by reaction with Cl atom is a potentially important loss process for CH(3)OCl in the polar stratosphere.

Direct ab initio dynamics calculation of the reaction rates of CH3OCl with OH.

A direct ab initio dynamics method was carried out for the reaction CH3OCl + OH --> products. Three abstraction channels from chlorine atom, in-plane hydrogen, and out-of-plane hydrogen atoms at the CH3 group have been found. The optimized geometries and frequencies of the stationary points and the minimum-energy paths (MEPs) were calculated at the MP2/6-311G(d,p) level. To improve the reaction enthalpy and potential barrier, single-point calculations were made at three higher levels of theory, the approximate QCISD(T)/6-311++G(3df,2pd), G3, and G3(MP2) levels. Furthermore, the rate constants for three abstraction channels were evaluated using canonical variational transition state theory (CVT) with the small-curvature tunneling correction (SCT) over a wide temperature range of 220-2000 K at above three higher theory levels, respectively. The calculated rate constants as well as branching rates are in reasonable agreement with the experimental values in the temperature region 250-341 K. The present results indicate H-abstraction especially from out-of-plane hydrogen is the main reaction pathway, while Cl-abstraction is much less competitive.