The unimolecular dissociation of H2CO on the lowest triplet potential-energy surface

The unimolecular dissociation reaction of H2CO on the triplet potential-energy surface has been studied via ab initio electronic structure theory. The stationary point geometries for the equilibrium and transition state are determined employing the configuration interaction with single and double excitations (CISD), coupled cluster with single and double excitations (CCSD), and CCSD with perturbative triple excitations [CCSD(T)] levels of theory with large basis sets up to the correlation consistent (cc)-pVQZ basis. With the best method, cc-pVQZ CCSD(T), the first excited triplet ((a) over tilde(3) A") State lies 72.2 kcal/mol (25 260 cm(-1)) above the ground ((X) over tilde(1) A(1)) state of H2CO, which is in excellent agreement with the experimental observation of 72.03 kcal/mol (25 194 cm(-1)). The dissociation limit (H . + HCO .) is located at 86.3 kcal/mol (30 170 cm(-1)) above the ground state of H2CO, which is again in good agreement with the two experimentally determined values of 86.57 kcal/mol (30 280 cm(-1)) and 86.71 kcal/mol (30 328.5 cm(-1)). With the same method the triplet dissociation transition state lies 92.4 kcal/mol (32 300 cm(-1)) above the ground state. Consequently, the activation energy for the dissociation reaction of H2CO on the triplet surface is determined ab initio to be 18.9-20.1 kcal/mol (6620-7040 cm(-1)) (including an estimated error bar of 1.2 kcal/mol or 420 cm(-1)). The zero-point vibrationally corrected exit barrier height is predicted to be 4.9-6.1 kcal/mol (1710-2130 cm(-1)). These newly predicted energies are consistent with the recent experimental observations by the Moore group at University of California-Berkeley (1987) and by the Wittig group at University of Southern California (1997). (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.