A single transition state serves two mechanisms. the branching ratio for CH ₂O ^̇- + CH ₃Cl on improved potential energy surfaces

The reaction of formaldehyde radical anion with methyl chloride, CH ₂O ^.- + CH ₃Cl, is an example in which a single transition state leads to two products: substitution at carbon (Sub(C), CH ₃CH ₂O ^. + Cl ^-) and electron transfer (ET, CH ₂O + CH ₃ ^. + Cl ^-). The branching ratio for this reaction has been studied by ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD). The energies of transition states and intermediates were computed at a variety of levels of theory and compared to accurate energetics calculated by the G3 and CBS-QB3 methods. A bond additivity correction has been constructed to improve the Hartree - Fock potential energy surface (BAC-UHF). A satisfactory balance between good energetics and affordable AIMD calculations can be achieved with BH&HLYP/6-31G(d) and BAC-UHF/6-31G(d) calculations. Approximately 200 ab initio classical trajectories were calculated for each level of theory with initial conditions sampled from a thermal distribution at 298 K at the transition state. Three types of trajectories were distinguished: trajectories that go directly to ET product, trajectories that go to Sub(C) product, and trajectories that initially go into the Sub(C) valley and then dissociate to ET products. The BH&HLYP/6-31G(d) calculations overestimate the number of nonreactive and direct ET trajectories because the transition state is too early. For the BH&HLYP and BAC-UHF methods, about one-third of the trajectories that initially go into the Sub(C) valley dissociate to ET products, compared to just over half with UHF/6-31G(d) in the earlier study. This difference can be attributed to a better value for the calculated energy release from the initial transition state and to an improved Sub(C)→ET barrier height with the BH&HLYP and BAC-UHF methods.