Tropospheric formation of hydroxymethyl hydroperoxide, formic acid, H2O2, and OH from carbonyl oxide in the presence of water vapor: a theoretical study of the reaction mechanism.

We have carried out a theoretical investigation of the gas-phase reaction mechanism of the H2COO+ H2O reaction, which is interesting for atmospheric purposes. The B3LYP method with the 6-31G(d,p) and 6-311 + G(2d,2p) basis sets was employed for the geometry optimization of the stationary points. Additionally, single-point CCSD(T)/6-311 + G(2d,2p) energy calculations have been done for the B3LYP/6-311 + G(2d,2p) optimized structures. The reaction begins with the formation of a hydrogen-bond complex that we have calculated to be 6 kcalmol(-1) more stable than the reactants. Then, the reaction follows two different channels. The first one leads to the formation of hydroxymethyl hydroperoxide (HMHP), for which we have calculated an activation barrier of deltaGa(298) = 11.3 kcalmol(-1), while the second one gives HCO + OH + H2O, with a calculated activation barrier of deltaGa(298) = 20.9 kcalmol(-1). This process corresponds to the water-catalyzed decomposition of H2COO, and its unimolecular decomposition has been previously reported in the literature. Additionally, we have also investigated the HMHP decomposition. We have found two reaction modes that yield HCOOH+H2O; one reaction mode leads to H2CO + H2O2 and a homolytic cleavage, which produces H2COOH + OH radicals. Furthermore, we have also investigated the water-assisted HMHP decomposition, which produces a catalytic effect of about 14 kcalmol(-1) in the process that leads to H2CO + H2O2.