Theoretical Study on Dissociation Potential Energy Surface of Peroxynitric Acid

The lowest energy structures of peroxynitric acid have been studied with B3LYP/6-311+ G(2d,2p) method. The potential energy surfaces (PES) along the O-N and O-Obonds have been scanned at CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVDZ level, respectively. The calculated results show that on the O-N PES, the O3-N4 bond length of the loose transition state is 2.82 ? and the corresponding energy barrier is 25.6 kcal/mol, while on the O-O PES, the loose transition state with of O2-O3 bond length of 2.35 ? has the energy barrier of 37.4 kcal/mol. Thus the primary reaction path for peroxynitric acid is the dissociation into HO₂ and NO₂.