The reaction of atomic oxygen with ethylene is a fundamental oxidation step in combustion and is prototypical of reactions in which oxygen adds to double bonds. For 3O+C2H4 and for this class of reactions decomposition of the initial adduct via spin-allowed reaction channels on the triplet surface competes with intersystem crossing (ISC) and a set of spin-forbidden reaction channels on the ground-state singlet surface. The kinetics of 3O+C2H4 was studied using an ab initio transition state theory based master equation approach that includes an a priori description of ISC. The theoretical results were remarkably in good agreement with existing low-temperature experimental kinetics and molecular beam studies. Above approximately equal 1000 K CH2CHO+H and CH2+CH2O were predicted as the major products which differs from the room temperature preference for CH3+HCO and from the prediction of a previous detailed master equation study.
This work provides new temperature-dependent mole fractions of elusive intermediates relevant to the low-temperature oxidation of dimethyl ether (DME). It extends the previous study of Moshammer et al. [J. Phys. Chem. A 2015, 119, 7361-7374 ] in which a combination of a jet-stirred reactor and molecular beam mass spectrometry with single-photon ionization via tunable synchrotron-generated vacuum-ultraviolet radiation was used to identify (but not quantify) several highly oxygenated species. Here, temperature-dependent concentration profiles of 17 components were determined in the range of 450-1000 K and compared to up-to-date kinetic modeling results. Special emphasis is paid toward the validation and application of a theoretical method for predicting photoionization cross sections that are hard to obtain experimentally but essential to turn mass spectral data into mole fraction profiles. The presented approach enabled the quantification of the hydroperoxymethyl formate (HOOCH2OCH2O), which is a key intermediate in the low-temperature oxidation of DME. The quantification of this keto-hydroperoxide together with the temperature-dependent concentration profiles of other intermediates including H2O2, HCOOH, CH3OCHO, and CH3OOH reveals new opportunities for the development of a next-generation DME combustion chemistry mechanism.
Abstract Collisional energy transfer is an essential aspect of chemical reactivity and maintenance of thermal equilibrium. Here we report the shape (energy-dependence) of the collisional energy transfer probability function for collisions of vibrationally excited NO2 entrained in a molecular beam and photoexcited to within 40 cm-1 of its dissociation threshold. The internally excited molecules undergo collisions with Ar atoms in a crossed beam apparatus. Dissociative collisions rapidly produce the NO(J) fragment, which is observed by velocity-mapped ion imaging and REMPI techniques. The measured collisional energy transfer function is obtained via energy conservation and is compared with the results of classical trajectory calculations. Good agreement between the theory and experiment is found for collisions that transfer small amounts of energy, but the theory predicts a higher likelihood of energetic collisions than is observed experimentally. We explore possible explanations for this discrepancy in the dynamics of the collision excitation process.
The appropriateness of treating crossing seams of electronic states of different spins as nonadiabatic transition states in statistical calculations of spin-forbidden reaction rates is considered. We show that the spin-forbidden reaction coordinate, the nuclear coordinate perpendicular to the crossing seam, is coupled to the remaining nuclear degrees of freedom. This coupling gives rise to multidimensional effects that are not typically included in statistical treatments of spin-forbidden kinetics. Three qualitative categories of multidimensional effects may be identified: static multidimensional effects due to the geometry-dependence of the local shape of the crossing seam and of the spin-orbit coupling, dynamical multidimensional effects due to energy exchange with the reaction coordinate during the seam crossing, and nonlocal (history-dependent) multidimensional effects due to interference of the electronic variables at second, third, and later seam crossings. Nonlocal multidimensional effects are intimately related to electronic decoherence, where electronic dephasing acts to erase the history of the system. A semiclassical model based on short-time full-dimensional trajectories that includes all three multidimensional effects as well as a model for electronic decoherence is presented. The results of this multidimensional nonadiabatic statistical theory (MNST) for the 3O + CO → CO2 reaction are compared with the results of statistical theories employing one-dimensional (Landau-Zener and weak coupling) models for the transition probability and with those calculated previously using multistate trajectories. The MNST method is shown to accurately reproduce the multistate decay-of-mixing trajectory results, so long as consistent thresholds are used. The MNST approach has several advantages over multistate trajectory approaches and is more suitable in chemical kinetics calculations at low temperatures and for complex systems. The error in statistical calculations that neglect multidimensional effects is shown to be as large as a factor of 2 for this system, with static multidimensional effects identified as the largest source of error.
Collision integrals related to binary (dilute gas) diffusion are calculated classically for six species colliding with N2. The most detailed calculations make no assumptions regarding the complexity of the potential energy surface, and the resulting classical collision integrals are in excellent agreement with previous semiclassical results for H + N2 and H2 + N2 and with recent experimental results for CnH2n+2 + N2, n = 2-4. The detailed classical results are used to test the accuracy of three simplifying assumptions typically made when calculating collision integrals: (1) approximating the intermolecular potential as isotropic, (2) neglecting the internal structure of the colliders (i.e., neglecting inelasticity), and (3) employing unphysical R-12 repulsive interactions. The effect of anisotropy is found to be negligible for H + N2 and H2 + N2 (in agreement with previous quantum mechanical and semiclassical results for systems involving atomic and diatomic species) but is more significant for larger species at low temperatures. For example, the neglect of anisotropy decreases the diffusion coefficient for butane + N2 by 15% at 300 K. The neglect of inelasticity, in contrast, introduces only very small errors. Approximating the repulsive wall as an unphysical R-12 interaction is a significant source of error at all temperatures for the weakly interacting systems H + N2 and H2 + N2, with errors as large as 40%. For the normal alkanes in N2, which feature stronger interactions, the 12/6 Lennard-Jones approximation is found to be accurate, particularly at temperatures above ∼700 K where it predicts the full-dimensional result to within 5% (although with somewhat different temperature dependence). Overall, the typical practical approach of assuming isotropic 12/6 Lennard-Jones interactions is confirmed to be suitable for combustion applications except for weakly interacting systems, such as H + N2. For these systems, anisotropy and inelasticity can safely be neglected but a more detailed description of the repulsive wall is required for quantitative predictions. A straightforward approach for calculating effective isotropic potentials with realistic repulsive walls is described. An analytic expression for the calculated diffusion coefficient for H + N2 is presented and is estimated to have a 2-sigma error bar of only 0.7%.