An ab initio and DFT study on the hydrolysis of carbonyl dichloride

Hydrolysis of carbonyl dichloride or phosgene (Cl2CO) in gas phase has been investigated at Hartree-Fock, density functional and ab initio levels of theory. The effects of basis sets on the energetics of the reaction have also been explored. Calculations reveal that initially carbonyl dichloride and water form a weak complex and this complex can react further in two ways. In Path 1, water adds on to carbonyl dichloride across carbonyl bond in a concerted fashion to give dichloromethane diol, and this diol decomposes to form chloro formic acid by syn-1,2-elimination of HCl and forms CO2 and HCl as final products. Path 2 is the concerted addition of water across carbon chlorine bond and elimination of HCl in a single step leading to the formation of chloro formic acid directly. This second path that skips the formation of dichloromethane diol is observed to be very low lying and hence is kinetically favored. Addition of second water molecule to the reacting system is found to catalyze the reaction by stabilizing the complex, intermediate and transition states and reduces the activation energy to 24.6 kcal mol−1 compared to 29.9 kcal mol−1 for a single water molecule.