A Computational Chemistry Investigation of the Mechanism of the Water-Assisted Decomposition of Trichloroethylene Oxide

Abstract

Trichloroethylene oxide is a downstream product in the oxidative metabolism of trichloroethylene (TCE) and it may be involved in cytochrome P450 inactivation, protein function destruction, and nucleic acid base alkalization. To explore the hydrolysis mechanism of the decomposition of TCE oxide, an investigation using Second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory in conjunction with density functional theory has been conducted to analyze the effect of the water solvation shell on probable reaction steps. The decomposition of TCE oxide is accelerated by coordinated water molecules (up to seven), which reveals that water molecules can help to solvate the TCE oxide molecule and activate the release of the Cl– leaving group. After the opening of the epoxide ring, several pathways are proposed to account for the dehalogenation step along with the formation of CO as well as three carboxylic acids (formic acid, glyoxylic acid, and dichloroacetic acid). The predominant pathways were examined by comparing the computed activation energies for the formation of the products to each other for the possible reaction steps examined in this work. After rationally analyzing the computational results, the ring-opening reaction has been identified as the rate-determining step. The rate constant estimated for the TCE oxide decomposition from the calculations performed here was found to be reasonably consistent with previous experimental observations reported in the literature.