Exploring the dynamics of hydrogen atom release from the radical-radical reaction of O(3P) with C3H5.

The gas-phase radical-radical reaction dynamics of O(3P) + C3H5 --> H(2S) + C3H4O was studied at an average collision energy of 6.4 kcal/mol in a crossed beam configuration. The ground-state atomic oxygen [O(3P)] and allyl radicals (C3H5) were generated by the photolysis of NO2 and the supersonic flash pyrolysis of allyl iodide, respectively. Nascent hydrogen atom products were probed by the vacuum-ultraviolet-laser induced fluorescence spectroscopy in the Lyman-alpha region centered at 121.6 nm. With the aid of the CBS-QB3 level of ab initio theory, it has been found that the barrierless addition of O(3P) to C3H5 forms the energy-rich addition complexes on the lowest doublet potential energy surface, which are predicted to undergo a subsequent direct decomposition step leading to the reaction products H + C3H4O. The major counterpart C3H4O of the probed hydrogen atom is calculated to be acrolein after taking into account the factors of barrier height, reaction enthalpy, and the number of intermediates involved along the reaction pathway. The nascent H-atom Doppler profile analysis shows that the average center-of-mass translational energy of the H + C3H4O products and the fraction of the total available energy released as the translational energy were determined to be 3.83 kcal/mol and 0.054, respectively. On the basis of comparison with statistical calculations, the reaction proceeds through the formation of short-lived addition complexes rather than statistical, long-lived intermediates, and the polyatomic acrolein product is significantly internally excited at the moment of the decomposition.