Mode Specificity, Bond Selectivity, and Product Energy Disposal in X + CH4/CHD3 (X=H, F, O(3P), Cl, and OH) Hydrogen Abstraction Reactions: Perspective from Sudden Vector Projection Model

Abstract

AbstractReactions between methane and various radicals have become the workhorse in our understanding of mode specificity and bond selectivity in bimolecular reactions. In this work, the recently proposed Sudden Vector Projection (SVP) model is used to gain insight into the existing experimental and theoretical data on these reactions. The SVP model attributes mode specificity and bond selectivity to the coupling of reactant modes/bonds with the reaction coordinate at the transition state. In the sudden limit, the strength of the coupling can be simply computed by projecting the corresponding reactant normal mode vector onto that of the imaginary frequency mode at the saddle point. In addition, the SVP model can be used to predict energy disposal in the products, thanks to microscopic reversibility. It is shown that most of the mode‐specific and bond‐selective chemistry in X + CH4/CHD3 (X=H, F, O(3P), Cl, and OH) reactions can be reasonably understood with this simple model.