Theoretical studies on the reaction mechanism of 1-chloroethane with hydroxyl radical

The reaction mechanism of 1-chloroethane with hydroxyl radical has been investigated by using density functional theory (DFT) B3LYP/6-31G (d, p) method. All bond dissociation enthalpies were computed at the same theoretical level. It was found that hydrogen abstraction pathway is the most favorable. There are two hydrogen abstraction pathways with activation barriers of 0.630 and 4.988 kJ/mol, respectively, while chlorine abstraction pathway was not found. It was observed that activation energies have a more reasonable correlation with the reaction enthalpy changes (Delta H-r) than with bond dissociation enthalpies (BDE)