Effect of Solvation on Ozonolysis Reaction Intermediates and Transition States

Electrostatic solvent effects on the ozonolysis of ethylene have been investigated using correlated ab initio and density functional approaches. We use a simple polarizable continuum model for the solvent. It allows us to evaluate the medium effect on both the electronic and nuclear structure of the chemical species involved in the reaction. The computations confirm that basically the reaction proceeds through the Criegee mechanism. However, formation of the van der Waals complexes ethyl-ene/ozone and carbonyl oxide/formaldehyde also appears to play a role. All the calculated species are stabilized with respect to the reactants except the transition state corresponding to the primary ozonide formation. In general, electrostatic solvent effects are relatively small for activation barriers of single reaction steps and more substantial for the corresponding reaction energies. Moreover, the medium significantly modifies the structure of some species for which polarization effects are crucial.