Formamide (NH2CHO), being the simplest organic molecule containing an amide functional group, serves as a prototype to study protein and peptide chemistry. Formamide has been found in Comets and interstellar media and its decomposition results in smaller molecules such as NH3, CO, HCN, HNCO, etc. These smaller molecules are considered to have been potential precursors for the formation of complex biological molecules, such as nucleic acids and nucleobases, in the early Earth. Several experimental and theoretical investigations of formamide decomposition have been reported in the literature. In the present work, unimolecular decomposition of formamide in the electronic ground state was investigated by classical direct chemical dynamics simulations. The calculations were performed at three different energies using the density functional B3LYP/aug-cc-pVDZ level of electronic structure theory. The major dissociation products observed were NH3, CO, H2, HNCO, H2O, HCN, and HNC along with products of a few minor dissociation channels. Reactivity, atomic level mechanisms, and product branching ratios were investigated as a function of total energy.
Halogen substituted analogues of formaldehyde, HXCO (X = F, Cl, Br, and I) play a crucial role in the degradation of stratospheric ozone. Several spectroscopic and quantum chemistry investigations of...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.