Theoretical and Experimental Study on Alkaline Hydrolysis of Isopropyl Nitrate

This paper studied the alkaline hydrolysis of isopropyl nitrate by calculating and comparing its four reaction pathways. The study employed ab initio MP2/6-311+g(d,p) to reflect the geometric structure and electronic structure of stagnation point in reaction pathways. The frequencies were calculated at the same level and the IR spectra of the main reactant and products were obtained. The method of CCSD(T)/6-311++g(3df,2p)//MP2/6-311+g(d,p) was used to calculate single-point energy. The Polarizable Continuum Model (PCM) was adopted to study the solvation effect of the reaction, so that the reaction potential energy surface in standard state and solvation state was obtained. Comparison showed that with high temperature the reaction is more inclined to produce isopropanol [(CH₃)₂CHOH] and nitrate ion (NO₃ ^–). Meanwhile, this paper also discussed the influence of pH value on the reaction, discovering that pH changes have no great influence on the reaction pathway sequence. At level CCSD(T)/6-311++g(3df,2p), the reaction rate constant was calculated with methods of TST, CVT, CVT/ZCT and CVT/SCT. Apart from theoretical research, the experiment of KOH hydrolysis of isopropyl nitrate was carried out, and the products were extracted by ether (C₄H₁₀O) for infrared spectroscopic analysis, of which the result was consistent with theoretical calculation.