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Unimolecular dissociation dynamics of vibrationally activated CH3CHOO Criegee intermediates to OH radical products

Nature Chemistry volume 8, pages 509–514 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The hydroxyl radical is an important atmospheric oxidant, and a significant source of its production occurs through alkene ozonolysis. This takes place via a cycloaddition reaction and subsequent fragmentation to form an energized carbonyl oxide (for example, CH3CHOO), known as a Criegee intermediate, which can then either react with another atmospheric species or decay and, in doing so, produce the hydroxyl radical. Here, we examine the dissociation dynamics of a prototypical Criegee intermediate by characterizing the translational and internal energy distributions of the OH radical products, which reflect critical configurations along the reaction pathway. Experimentally, the kinetic energy release to OH products is ascertained through velocity map imaging. Theoretically, quasi-classical trajectories are performed on a new full-dimensional, ab initio potential energy surface. Both experiment and theory show that most of the available energy flows into internal excitation of the vinoxy products. The isotropic angular distribution of OH fragments indicates that dissociation occurs in ≥2 ps, in agreement with theory.

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Figure 1: Reaction schematic showing key features along the pathway from a prototypical Criegee intermediate syn-CH3CHOO to hydroxyl radical (OH) products.
Figure 2: Lifetime for hydroxyl radical (OH) production from velocity map imaging and trajectory calculations for the syn-CH3CHOO Criegee intermediate.
Figure 3: Total kinetic energy release (TKER) to products from experimental and theoretical studies.
Figure 4: Hydroxyl radical (OH) rotational product state distributions from experimental and theoretical studies of the dissociation dynamics of the syn-CH3CHOO Criegee intermediate.
Figure 5: Calculated internal energy distributions of the vinoxy (CH2CHO) products from the dissociation dynamics of the syn-CH3CHOO Criegee intermediate.
Figure 6: Snapshots of a representative trajectory starting from the syn-CH3CHOO transition state to OH+vinoxy (CH2CHO) products.

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Acknowledgements

The experimental research (M.I.L.) was supported by the US Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences (DE-FG02-87ER13792). The theoretical research (J.M.B.) was supported by the US Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences (DE-FG02-97ER14782). The authors thank F. Liu (University of Pennsylvania) for discussions. J.M.B. and X.W. also thank F. Evangelista (Emory University) for discussions about the active space in CASPT2 calculations.

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Author notes

  1. Nathanael M. Kidwell, Hongwei Li and Xiaohong Wang: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104-6323, Pennsylvania, USA

    Nathanael M. Kidwell, Hongwei Li & Marsha I. Lester

  2. Department of Chemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, 30322, Georgia, USA.

    Xiaohong Wang & Joel M. Bowman

Authors
  1. Nathanael M. Kidwell
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  2. Hongwei Li
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Contributions

N.M.K., H.L. and X.W. contributed equally to this work. N.M.K. and H.L. performed the experiments and analysed the data. X.W. performed the theoretical calculations and analysed the results. M.I.L. and J.M.B. conceived the experiments and theoretical calculations, respectively, and co-wrote the paper with contributions from other authors. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Joel M. Bowman or Marsha I. Lester.

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Kidwell, N., Li, H., Wang, X. et al. Unimolecular dissociation dynamics of vibrationally activated CH3CHOO Criegee intermediates to OH radical products. Nature Chem 8, 509–514 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2488

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