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The focus of this dissertation is to decipher the previously unknown reaction dynamics of NO3 photodissociation. Although the NO + O2 products are known to catalyze atmospheric ozone destruction, the mechanism by which these products are formed has remained a mystery, and no energetically accessible transition state has ever been calculated. Using velocity map ion imaging experiments to carefully study the stereochemistry of the product fragments combined with theoretical calculations performed by Drs. Xiao, Maeda, and Morokuma at Kyoto University, we have determined that the reaction proceeds exclusively via the unusual "roaming mechanism," with no evidence of a competing traditional transition state pathway. Within, the significance of this discovery is discussed in regards to both the NO3 system and roaming dynamics in general, for which this system has provided new insight.

Development of effective pollution control strategies for urban areas requires accurate predictive models. The ability of models to correctly characterize the atmospheric chemistry, meteorology, and deposition rely on accurate data measurements, both as input and verification of output. Therefore, the measurement techniques must be sensitive, accurate, and capable of resolving the spatial and temporal variations of key chemical species. The application of a sensitive in situ optical absorption technique, known as cavity ring-down spectroscopy, will be introduced for simultaneously measuring the nitrate radical and dinitrogen pentoxide. The cavity ring-down spectrometer was initially designed and constructed based on the experiments by Steven Brown and Akkihebal Ravishankara at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The instrument design has since undergone many revisions before attaining the current instrumentation system. Laboratory observations provide verification of accurate N2O5 and NO3 detection with measurements of the nitrate radical absorption spectrum centered at 662 nm, effective chemical zeroing with nitric oxide, and efficient thermal decomposition of N2O5. Field observations at a local park provided further confirmation of the instruments capability in measuring N2O5 and NO3. However, detection limits were too high to detect ambient NO3. Effective and frequent zeroing can easily improve upon the sensitivity of the instrument. Determination of the source of the polluted air masses detected during these studies was unknown since the typical southerly winds from Houston were not observed. Since deployment in the field, instrumentation modifications and laboratory measurements are underway for preparation of the SOOT campaign in Houston, Texas starting April 15, 2009. Current modifications include automation of the titration with a solenoid valve and an automated filter changer. Wall losses and filter transmission for NO3 and N2O5 will be determined through laboratory measurements in coincidence with and ion-drift chemical ionization mass spectrometer prior to the SOOT project. Potential modifications to improve upon the instrument are suggested for future endeavors.

The Born-Oppenheimer approximation is a mainstay in molecular physics and chemistry and can be considered a two step process. The first step is to solve the electronic problem with nuclei fixed in space while the second step is to then determine the nuclear dynamics on a given electronic potential energy surface. This first-step calculation of the wavefunction and electronic energies for fixed nuclei has been at the center of modern quantum chemistry for decades. While the majority of chemical processes can be investigated by considering these single electronic surface dynamics, there exist problems in which the dynamics are not constrained to a single electronic surface. One such problem that justifies going beyond the typical adiabatic approximation is the determination of energy levels in systems with strongly coupled electronic states. While some work has been done using diabatic or quasidiabatic Hamiltonians to describe such systems, the work has historically been of qualitative accuracy. Model Hamiltonians have been constructed using experimental data to help calibrate the model parameters aided by the use of lower level adiabatic calculations to help inform the model. It is only within the last few years that theorists have been able to attempt parameterization of such models using only ab initio methods. The goal of this work is to develop a computational framework for the parameterization of quantitatively accurate quasidiabatic Hamiltonians based purely on ab initio information and apply it to a notoriously difficult problem that has plagued the theoretical community for decades -- high accuracy treatment of the energy levels of the NO₃ radical. In this dissertation, high-level ab initio calculations that employ the equation-of-motion coupled-cluster method in the single, doubles and triples (EOMIP-CCSDT) have been used in conjunction with a quasidiabatic ab initio approximation to construct a vibronic Hamiltonian for the strongly coupled X²A'₂ and B²E' states of the NO₃ radical. A quartic vibronic coupling model potential of the form advocated by Köppel et al. has been used to determine the energy levels of this system to quantitative accuracy when compared to experimental data. In order to obtain sufficiently accurate potential energy surfaces necessary to parameterize a quantitatively accurate model Hamiltonian, thousands of large calculations had to be run that do not fit in memory on even the largest HPC systems. The resulting large, out-of-core solves do not map to traditional systems in a way to enable any reasonable parallelization. As a result, a new MPI-based utility has been developed to support out-of-core methods on distributed memory systems. This and other advances in scientific computing form the basis of the developed computational framework. / text

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The nitrate radical (NO3·) was first identified as early as the 1881, but its role in atmospheric oxidation has only been identified within recent decades. Due to its high one-electron reduction potential and its reactivity toward a diverse set of substrates, it dominates nighttime atmospheric oxidation and has since been the subject of much work. Despite this, studies on NO3· hydrogen atom transfer reactions have been somewhat neglected in favor of its more reactive oxidative pathways. The first section of the dissertation will highlight the role of substrate structure, solvent effects, and the presence of a polar transition state on NO3· hydrogen abstractions from alcohols, alkanes, and ethers. In this work the acquisition of absolute rate constants from previously unexamined substrates was analyzed alongside a curated list of common organic pollutants degraded through hydrogen atom abstraction. It was found that NO3· reacts with low selectivity through an early polarized transition state with a modest degree of charge transfer. Compared to the gas-phase, condensed-phase reactions experience rate enhancement—consistent with Kirkwood theory—as a result of the polarized transition state. These insights are then applied to abstractions by NO3· from carboxylic acids in the next section. It was found that the rate constants for abstraction of α-carbons were diminished through induction by the adjacent carbonyl compared to the activation seen for the aforementioned substrates. The deactivation of abstraction by the carbonyl was found to be dramatically reduced as the substrate's alkyl chain was lengthened and/or branched. This apparent change in mechanism coincides with hydrogen abstraction of the alkyl chain for sufficiently large carboxylic acids and rules out the possibility of concerted bond breaking elsewhere in the molecule. Finally, the dissertation will cover some additional projects related to the overall nature of the work including examination of the kinetics of radical clock systems when complexed with metal ions and the examination of a highly oxidative biosourced monomer. / Doctor of Philosophy / The nitrate radical (NO3·) was first identified as early as the 1881, but its role in the breakdown of atmospheric pollutants has only been identified within recent decades. Operating primarily at night, NO3· serves as a major atmospheric oxidant—it breaks down pollutants by reactions that involve the removal of electrons from those substrates. This chemistry is particularly important in understanding the consequences of an increasingly industrialized world and the subsequent short-term health and environmental implications. Geographically, these reactions will occur in large concentrations near locations that contribute greatly to atmospheric pollution, such as above coal-powered plants, heavily industrialized areas, above the canopy of large forests, and immediately behind the engines of airplanes as they move through the sky. The proximity of these locations to large population centers has caused the pollutants to greatly impact human health. These contaminants have been linked to several of the leading global causes of death, such as ischemic heart disease, stroke, and respiratory illnesses. The first section of the dissertation will focus on the role of pollutant structure, the medium in which the reaction occurs, and the development of a charged complex when NO3· reacts with alcohols, alkanes, and ethers. These substrates are often found as the result of incomplete combustion when burning fuel or as products of even more sustainable biodiesels. In this work the exact rate constants were found for substrates that were previously unexamined and compared with similar known reaction rates. It was found that NO3· has a low preference for what it reacts with and passes through a modestly charged complex early in the reaction. Compared to gaseous reactions, reactions in a liquid environment proceed faster due to the formation of a charged complex. This was then applied to reactions with carboxylic acids in the next section. Carboxylic acids are often found in large concentrations above the canopy of large forests resulting from the oxidation of isoprenes that are naturally released from broad-leaf trees. It was found that these reactions were slower than reactions with alkanes as the development of the charged complex was inhibited due to the presence of an adjacent dipole. When the carboxylic acid was longer and/or more branched, the formation of the charged complex was no longer inhibited as the reaction site moved further from the dipole. A change in reaction pathway was observed when the acids were sufficiently large. This ruled out the possibility of the reaction occurring simultaneously with a fracturing and rearrangement elsewhere. Finally, the dissertation will cover some additional projects that share some overlap with the work already described including the study of the rates of radical clock systems in the presence of metal ions and the study of naturally sourced monomers that are prone to losing electrons.

Durant la nuit, le radical nitrate (NO3) est le principal oxydant troposphérique des composés organiques. La compréhension de l'implication des composés organiques dans les processus de chimie troposphérique exige donc une connaissance des constantes cinétiques de leurs réactions avec le radical NO3. Toutefois, au regard du nombre considérable de composés organiques émis ou formés dans la troposphère, il est difficilement envisageable d'appréhender la réactivité de chaque composé en nous reposant exclusivement sur des études de laboratoire. Celles-ci se doivent d'être complétées par l'usage de méthodes prédictives. Nous avons donc, au cours de ce travail, développé une relation de type structure-réactivité (SAR) qui permet le calcul des constantes de vitesse des réactions des composés organiques avec le radical nitrate. Cette méthode prédictive empirique permet d'estimer la réactivité d'un composé à partir de sa structure moléculaire et a été élaborée à partir de constantes cinétiques expérimentales publiées dans la littérature. De plus, conjointement au développement de cette SAR, les constantes cinétiques des réactions d'aldéhydes et d'éthers insaturés avec le radical nitrate ont été mesurées au laboratoire. Ces études expérimentales ont ainsi contribué à étoffer la base de données cinétiques sur laquelle repose cette SAR afin de permettre son parachèvement. Cette SAR reproduit, à un facteur deux près, plus de 90% des constantes cinétiques des alcènes et des composés aliphatiques oxygénés saturés et insaturés / The nitrate radical (NO3) is the main oxidant of organic compounds in the night-time troposphere. Thus, comprehension of organic compounds involvement in tropospheric chemical processes requires the knowledge of the rate coefficients for their reactions with the nitrate radical. Nevertheless, considering the wide range of organic compounds emitted or formed in the atmosphere, it is difficult to determine the reactivity of each compound only with laboratory studies. Thereby, these experimental studies have to be completed by predictive methods. In this study, a group-additivity method is therefore used to develop a new Structure-Activity Relationship (SAR) which allows prediction of the rate constants for reactions of organic compounds with the NO3 radical. This empirical method is based on the prediction of a rate constant leaning only on the molecular structure of the organic compound. It relies on experimental rate constants available in the literature. Moreover, the rate constants of unsaturated aldehydes and ethers with the nitrate radical have been measured. Thereby, these experimental studies contribute to expend the kinetic database used for the SAR development and allow its improvement. For saturated and unsaturated oxygenated compounds, more than 90% of the rate constants are reproduced within a factor of two