Toluene combustion: reaction paths, thermochemical properties, and kinetic analysis for the methylphenyl radical + O2 reaction

Aromatic compounds such as toluene and xylene are major components of many fuels. Accurate kinetic mechanisms for the combustion of toluene are, however, incomplete, as they do not accurately model experimental results such as strain rates and ignition times and consistently underpredict conversion. Current kinetic mechanisms for toluene combustion neglect the reactions of the methylphenyl radicals, and we believe that this is responsible, in part, for the shortcomings of these models. We also demonstrate how methylphenyl radical formation is important in the combustion and pyrolysis of other alkyl-substituted aromatic compounds such as xylene and trimethylbenzene. We have studied the oxidation reactions of the methylphenyl radicals with O2 using computational ab initio and density functional theory methods. A detailed reaction submechanism is presented for the 2-methylphenyl radical + O2 system, with 16 intermediates and products. For each species, enthalpies of formation are calculated using the computational methods G3 and G3B3, with isodesmic work reactions used to minimize computational errors. Transition states are calculated at the G3B3 level, yielding high-pressure limit elementary rate constants as a function of temperature. For the barrierless methylphenyl + O2 and methylphenoxy + O association reactions, rate constants are determined from variational transition state theory. Multichannel, multifrequency quantum Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel (qRRK) theory, with master equation analysis for falloff, provides rate constants as a function of temperature and pressure from 800 to 2400 K and 1 x 10(-4) to 1 x 10(3) atm. Analysis of our results shows that the dominant pathways for reaction of the three isomeric methylphenyl radicals is formation of methyloxepinoxy radicals and subsequent ring opening to methyl-dioxo-hexadienyl radicals. The next most important reaction pathway involves formation of methylphenoxy radicals + O in a chain branching process. At lower temperatures, the formation of stabilized methylphenylperoxy radicals becomes significant. A further important reaction channel is available only to the 2-methylphenyl isomer, where 6-methylene-2,4-cyclohexadiene-1-one (ortho-quinone methide, o-QM) is produced via an intramolecular hydrogen transfer from the methyl group to the peroxy radical in 2-methylphenylperoxy, with subsequent loss of OH. The decomposition of o-QM to benzene + CO reveals a potentially important new pathway for the conversion of toluene to benzene during combustion. A number of the important products of toluene combustion proposed in this study are known to be precursors of polyaromatic hydrocarbons that are involved in soot formation. Reactions leading to the important unsaturated oxygenated intermediates identified in this study, and the further reactions of these intermediates, are not included in current aromatic oxidation mechanisms.