The molecular level study of the fate of the CH₃CH₂C(O)OCH(O)CH₃ radical derived from ethyl propionate

A quantum chemical study has been presented on the decomposition of CH3CH2C(O)OCH(O•)CH3 which is derived from ethyl propionate (CH3CH2C(O)OCH2CH3) using the M06-2X/6-31 + G(d,p) level of theory. The thermal decomposition of CH3CH2C(O)OCH(O•)CH3 is essential to understand the chemistry of combustion of ethyl propionate. Here, the decomposition and oxidative pathways, bond fission and alpha ester rearrangement of CH3CH2C(O)OCH(O•)CH3 have been explored. We have obtained transition states for the different pathways and further verified each transition state by performing intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) calculations. The density of state spectra (DOS) was calculated using GaussSum software. The single-point energy calculations are performed at the same function but using larger basis sets such as 6-311++G(d,p) and 6-311++G(3df,2p). We have shown all stationary points and transition states involved in reaction pathways on the potential energy surface (PES) diagram and also discussed the thermochemistry of each reaction pathway. The thermal rate constants of various channels in the decomposition of CH3CH2C(O)OCH(O•)CH3 are determined using the Conventional Transition State Theory (CTST) in the temperature range of 250–450 K and 1atm. From PES, thermochemistry and kinetics analysis, we found that α-ester rearrangement produces propionic acid, which is dominant over the oxidative pathway for the decomposition of CH3CH2C(O)OCH(O•)CH3.