Quantum chemistry and dynamics of the abstraction reaction of H atoms from formaldehyde

This work reports a reduced dimensionality rate constant calculation of the H-abstraction reaction from formaldehyde. Quantum scattering calculations are performed treating explicitly the bonds being broken and formed. Geometry optimisations and frequency calculations are done at the MP2/cc-pVTZ level while energies are calculated with the CCSD(T) method. An analytical potential energy surface was developed from a relatively small number of grid points. When compared to semi-classical approaches, the quantum scattering calculations show that quantum tunnelling yields large contributions at low temperatures. At 200 K, we note a difference of about 5 orders of magnitude between transition state theory (TST) and quantum rate constants. Our predicted results show that the quantum and the CVT/SCT rate constants are in reasonable agreement with the available experiment at high temperatures, but that the last one gives better agreement to experimental results at low temperatures.