Mechanistic studies on the dibenzofuran formation from phenanthrene, fluorene and 9-fluorenone

We carried out molecular orbital theory calculations for the homogeneous gas-phase formation of dibenzofuran from phenanthrene, fluorene, 9-methylfluorene and 9-fluorenone. Dibenzofuran will be formed if ∙OH adds to C8a, and the order of reactivity follows as 9-fluorenone > 9-methylfluorene > fluorene > phenanthrene. The oxidations initiated by ClO∙ are more favorable processes, considering that the standard reaction Gibbs energies are at least 21.63 kcal/mol lower than those of the equivalent reactions initiated by ∙OH. The adding of ∙OH and then O2 to phenanthrene is a more favorable route than adding ∙OH to C8a of phenanthrene, when considering the greater reaction extent. The reaction channel from fluorene and O2 to 9-fluorenone and H2O seems very important, not only because it contains only three elementary reactions, but because the standard reaction Gibbs energies are lower than -80.07 kcal/mol.