TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENCE OF HYDROGEN-TRANSFER REACTIONS VIA TUNNELING AT LOW-TEMPERATURES

In this paper, we present a symmetrical and adiabatic reaction path for hydrogen transfer from methane by methyl by an ab initio method using the 6-31G** basis set with the MP2 corrections for UHF/6-31G** optimized geometries. The theoretical barrier is fitted with the symmetric Eckart function. We, then, take thermal averages of the rate constant (k) considering the discrete nature of the C-H oscillators and the continuous character of the various low-frequency modes of the composite system. Finally, we present a linear relation between log k and temperature. It is shown that this relation gives a good description of the kinetic results of both thermal and photochemical H-transfer reactions in the region of low temperatures. (C) 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.