Direct dynamics study of hydrogen-transfer isomerization of 1-pentyl and 1-hexyl radicals

The rate constants of three intramolecular hydrogen-transfer isomerization reactions, namely, 1-4 isomerization of the 1-pentyl radical and 1-4 and 1-5 isomerizations of the 1-hexyl radical, are calculated using variational transition state theory with multidimensional tunneling, in particular by using canonical variational theory (CVT, which is the version of variational transition state theory in which the transition state dividing surface is optimized for a canonical ensemble) with small-curvature tunneling (SCT) for the transmission coefficient. The required potential energy surfaces were obtained implicitly by direct dynamics employing interpolated variational transition state theory with mapping (IVTST-M) and variational transition state theory with interpolated single-point energies (VTST-ISPE). Single-level direct dynamics calculations were performed for all of the reactions by IVTST-M using M06-2X/MG3S or M08-HX/cc-pVTZ+ potential energy surfaces or both. The stationary points of 1-4 isomerization of 1-pentyl and the stationary points for the forward reactions of 1-4 and 1-5 isomerizations of 1-hexyl were also optimized by BMC-CCSD, and for all three reactions we also performed dual-level direct dynamics calculations using VTST-ISPE in which MCG3-MPW single-point energies served as the higher level. The calculated MCG3-MPW//M06-2X/MG3S rate constants agree well with experimental values for 1-4 isomerization of the 1-pentyl radical at high temperature, and this validates the accuracy of this theoretical method for 1-4 isomerization. The MCG3-MPW//M06-2X/MG3S method was therefore used to make a reliable prediction for the rata constants of 1-4 isomerization of the 1-hexyl radical for which a direct experimental measurement is not available. The calculated CVT/SCT/M08-HX/cc-pVTZ+ rate constants agree well with experimental values for 1-5 isomerization of the 1-hexyl radical, and they show that the tunneling effect for these reactions was underestimated in previous work.