A computational study of the threshold energies of the 1,2-FCl interchange reaction of chlorofluoroethanes

Abstract

The 1,2-FCl rearrangement reaction of a series of haloethanes is investigated by comparisons of the optimized ground- and transition-state geometries. Investigation of the effect of level of theory and basis set shows that the trends in threshold energies for rearrangement are reproduced across all levels of theory and basis set, and hence that a moderate level of theory and basis set is adequate for investigating the important trends in this reaction. Threshold barriers increase when a large number of fluorine atoms are attached to the carbon atom bearing the interchanging fluorine, suggesting that the C–F bonds prove difficult to distort to the transition geometry; the increase is smaller for fluorine substitution on the carbon atom bearing the interchanging hydrogen atom. By considering sets of isomeric reactions, the barrier height is shown to closely follow the thermodynamic stability of the alkane undergoing rearrangement; however there is a secondary effect owing to the relative stability of the transition geometry. This relative stability can be related to the thermodynamic stability of a series of isomeric alkenes that resemble the transition geometry without the rearranging atoms. This series of molecules constitute an unusual set owing to the ability to consider these three contributions to the activation barrier separately.