The studies on the physical and dissociation properties of chlorobenzene under external electric fields

Abstract

Chlorobenzene is one of the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) threatening human health. It is significant to study the degradation mechanism under external electric fields. Based on the density functional theory, the physical and dissociation properties including C–Cl bond length, total energy, dipole moment, frontier orbital energy, energy gap, IR spectrum, UV-vis absorption spectrum and potential energy curve are studied under external electric fields. According to these results, it is found that the C–Cl bond length becomes longer and tends to break with the increase of external electric field and the energy gap decreases with the increase of positive as well as negative external electric field. Moreover, the dissociation barrier in potential energy curve decreases and equilibrium bond length increases with increase of positive external electric field. And when external electric field reaches 0.040 atomic units ([Formula: see text], 1 atomic [Formula: see text], the dissociation barrier disappears which means that degradation of chlorobenzene occurs under strong external electric field due to the breakage of C–Cl bond. These results provide important references for studying the degradation mechanism of chlorobenzene under strong external electric fields.