Properties of chloroformyl peroxynitrate, ClC(O)OONO(2).

The synthesis of ClC(O)OONO(2) is accomplished by photolysis of a mixture of Cl(2), NO(2), and CO in large excess of O(2) at about -70 degrees C. The product is isolated after repeated trap-to-trap condensation. The solid compound melts at -84 degrees C, and the extrapolated boiling point is 80 degrees C. ClC(O)OONO(2) is characterized by IR, Raman, (13)C NMR, and UV spectroscopy. According to the IR matrix spectra, the compound exists at room temperature only as a single conformer. The molecular structure of ClC(O)OONO(2) is determined by gas electron diffraction. The molecule possesses a gauche structure with a dihedral angle of phi(COON) = 86.7(19) degrees , and the C=O bond is oriented syn with respect to the O-O bond. The short O-O bond (1.418(6) A) and the long N-O bond (1.511(8) A) are consistent with the facile dissociation of ClC(O)OONO(2) into the radicals ClC(O)OO and NO(2). The experimental geometry of ClC(O)OONO(2) is reproduced reasonably well by B3LYP/6-311+G(2df) calculations, whereas the MP2 approximation predicts the N-O bond considerably too long and the dihedral angle too small.