Experimental and Theoretical Studies of the VUV Photoionization of Chloropropylene Oxide

The photoionization and dissociative photoionization of chloropropylene oxide have been studied both experimentally and theoretically. In experiments, photoionization efficiency spectra for ions C 3 H 5 O +, CHO +, C 2 H 4 +, C 2 H 3 +, C 2 H 2 +, CH 3 +, and CH 2 OH + were obtained. Theoretically, the energetics of the dissociative photoionizations were examined by ab initio Gaussian-3 calculations. The computational results are useful in our attempt to establish the dissociative photoionization channels of chloropropylene oxide. These proposed channels include six simple bond cleavage reactions as well as a reaction involving intermediates and transition structures. The agreement between experimental and computational dissociation energies or barriers ranges from fair to excellent.