Structures, Electron Affinities, and Harmonic Vibrational Frequencies of the Simplest Alkyl Peroxyl Radicals and Their Anions

Abstract

The molecular structures and electron affinities of the R-OO/R-OO(-) (R = CH3, C2H5, n-C3H7, n-C4H9, n-C5H11, i-C3H7, t-C4H9) species have been determined using seven different density functional or hybrid Hartree-Fock density functional methods. The basis set used in this work is of double-zeta plus polarization quality with additional diffuse s-type and p-type functions, denoted DZP++. The geometries are fully optimized with each density functional theory method. Harmonic vibrational frequencies were found to be within 3.1% of available experimental values for most functionals. Two different types of the neutral-anion energy separations reported in this work are the adiabatic electron affinity and the vertical detachment energy. The most reliable adiabatic electron affinities obtained at the DZP++ BP86 level of theory are 1.150 (CH3OO), 1.124 (C2H5OO), 1.146 (n-C3H7OO), 1.173 (n-C4H9OO), 1.184 (n-C5H11OO), 1.145 (i-C3H7OO), and 1.114 eV (t-C4H9OO). Compared with the experimental values, the average absolute error of the BPW91 method is 0.05 eV.