Gas-Phase Oxidation of Atmospherically Relevant Unsaturated Hydrocarbons by Acyl Peroxy Radicals.

This study assesses the atmospheric impact of reactions between unsaturated hydrocarbons such as isoprene and monoterpenes and peroxy radicals containing various functional groups. We find that reactions between alkenes and acyl peroxy radicals have reaction rates high enough to be feasible in the atmosphere and lead to high molar mass accretion products. Moreover, the reaction between unsaturated hydrocarbons and acyl peroxy radicals leads to an alkyl radical, to which molecular oxygen rapidly adds. This finding is confirmed by both theoretical calculations and experiments. The formed perester peroxy radical may either undergo further H-shift reactions or react bimolecularly. The multifunctional oxygenated compounds formed through acyl peroxy radical + alkene reactions are potentially important contributors to particle formation and growth. Thus, acyl peroxy radical-initiated oxidation chemistry may need to be included in atmospheric models.

Accurate thermodynamic properties of gas phase hydrogen bonded complexes.

We have measured the infrared spectra of ethanol·dimethylamine and methanol·dimethylamine complexes in the 299-374 K temperature range, and have determined the enthalpy of complex formation (ΔH) to be -31.1 ± 2 and -29.5 ± 2 kJ mol(-1), respectively. The corresponding values of the Gibbs free energy (ΔG) are determined from the experimental integrated absorbance and a calculated oscillator strength of the OH-stretching vibrational transition to be 4.1 ± 0.3 and 3.9 ± 0.3 kJ mol(-1) at 302 and 300 K, respectively. The entropy, ΔS is determined from the values of ΔH and ΔG to be -117 ± 7 and -111 ± 10 J (mol K)(-1) for the ethanol·dimethylamine and methanol·dimethylamine complexes, respectively. The determined ΔH, ΔG and ΔS values of the two complexes are similar, as expected by the similarity to their donor molecules ethanol and methanol. Values of ΔH, ΔG and ΔS in chemical reactions are often obtained from quantum chemical calculations. However, these calculated values have limited accuracy and large variations are found using different methods. The accuracy of the present ΔH, ΔG and ΔS values is such that the benchmarking of theoretical methods is possible.