An ab initio study on the reaction of CH(X2π) with CH4

Abstract

The mechanism of the reaction CH(X2π) + CH4 has been investigated by ab initio molecular orbital calculations. Addition, insertion, and abstraction–addition reaction paths have been examined by, in total, five methods of approach. The addition reaction path has a rather high energy barrier. Our calculations have implied that the assumed insertion reaction path does not seem to exist for the reaction CH + CH4, and a two-step mechanism (abstraction–addition reaction path) was then proposed. For the abstraction–addition reaction, the reactants, transition state, intermediates, and products were optimized at the HF/3-21G and HF/6-31G* levels, and vibrational frequencies were calculated at the HF/3-21G level. Electronic correlation energy was estimated by means of the Møller–Plesset perturbation theory and configuration interaction method. The excited-state abstraction reaction was also studied in some detail.