State-to-state chemiluminescence in reactions of Mn atoms with S2Cl2†
Abstract
A combined experimental and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) investigation of the title reaction is presented. Both ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ laser-ablated Mn atom beams have been employed to determine the translational excitation functions for production of MnCl*(c5Σ+, d5Π, e5Δ, e5Σ+, A7Π). Analysis in terms of the multiple line-of-centres approach shows that the ‘hot’ results are dominated by reactions of the second metastable state of Mn, z8PJ, all with very low thresholds; while the first metastable state, a6DJ, and the ground state, a6S, are the precursors in the ‘cold’ results, all with significant excess barriers. The post-threshold behaviour of most z8PJ and a6DJ reaction channels implies that the transition states shift forward with increasing collision energy. The TDDFT calculations suggest that, while Mn*(z8PJ, a6DJ) insertion into the S–Cl bond is facile, the observed chemiluminescence channels mostly derive from abstraction in a preferred linear Mn–Cl–S configuration, and that the low z8PJ thresholds originate from attractive but excited reagent potentials which either reach a seam of interactions in the product valley or (in the c5Σ+ case) lead to an octet potential very close in energy to the product sextet. The excess barriers in the Mn*(a6DJ) and Mn(a6S) reactions appear for the most part to derive from exit channel