Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.112, No.10, 1981-1985, 2008
Proton affinity of methyl peroxynitrate
The equilibrium structures, harmonic vibrational frequencies of methyl peroxynitrate, and structures of protonated methyl peroxynitrate have been investigated using ab initio methods. The methods include the single- and double-excitation quadratic configuration (QCISD) methods and the QCISD(T) method, which incorporates a perturbational estimate of the effects of corrected triple excitation. The lowest-energy gas-phase form of protonated methyl peroxynitrate is a complex between CH3OOH and NO2+. The CH3OOH center dot NO2+ complex is bound by 22 +/-2 kcal/mol. The estimated proton affinity of methyl peroxynitrate is 178.8 +/- 3 kcal/mol. A general trend for the proton affinity of ROO-NO2 (peroxynitrates) compounds is discussed.