The site-specific kinetics of methyl formate, CH 3 OC(O)H Niamh Robertson 1 , Mark Blitz 1,2 , Lavinia Onel 1 , Robin Shannon 1 , Daniel Stone 1 , Paul Seakins 1 1 School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, UK, 2 National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds, UK Esters are primarily released into the atmosphere by industrial processes. They are also formed in situ following the emission of species such as dimethyl ether (CH 3 OCH 3 ) which forms methyl formate with a 90 ± 8 % yield and is of interest as a potential biofuel [1]. Site-specific rate coefficients are rate coefficients for a particular reaction site within a molecule. Determining site-specific rate coefficients is important to truly understand the atmospheric fate of a molecule,as reactions at different sites often lead to different products, and hence have different atmospheric impacts. Determining the site-specific kinetics for the reaction of the simplest ester, methyl formate, with OH is important in understanding the atmospheric impact esters have. This work uses the kinetic isotope effect with deuterated isotopomers of methyl formate, CH3OC(O)H, CH3OC(O)D, CD3OC(O)H and CD3OC(O)D to determine the site-specific kinetics of methyl formate with OH via the detection of OH and OD which are produced in different yields depending on the initial reaction site and isotopomer. It is experimentally and theoretically unfeasible to determine the reaction kinetics of all compounds in the atmosphere. Therefore, there is a requirement to predict site-specific reaction kinetics using structure activity relationships (SARs). Current SARs perform relatively poorly formultifunctional compounds such as esters [2]. This work aims to improve site specific kinetic predictions for the esters by providing an updated SAR for the esters. References
1. Japar, S.M., et al. (1991) Environ. Sci. Technol. 25, 3 2. Vereecken, L., et al. (2018) Int. J. Chem. Kinet., 50, 6
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