A theoretical study of the thermodynamics and kinetics of small organosulfur compounds

The performance of a large set of ab initio procedures in predicting geometries, thermochemical and kinetic data of small sulfur compounds is assessed. Geometries and thermochemical data for H2S, (CH3)(2)S, H2S2, (CH3)(2)S-2 and H2C=S are studied using the HF method, density functional theory methods (B3LYP, BHandHLYP, MPW1PW91 and BMK), post-HF methods [MP2, MP3, MP4, CCSD, CCSD(T) and QCISD] and composite techniques (G3, G3B3, CBS-QB3 and W1U). A set of five reactions involving these small organosulfur compounds is studied and the influence of the level of theory on transition state geometries, reaction barriers and rate coefficients is assessed. Independent of the level of theory used, accurate geometries are obtained with the 6-311G(2d,d,p) and cc-pVTZ basis sets, both reproducing experimental bond lengths and bond angles within 2 pm and 0.5A degrees. Besides composite methods, the BMK/cc-pVTZ method is the only studied method that succeeds to predict standard enthalpies of formation within 10 kJ mol(-1) of the experimental data. The best agreement with experimental rate coefficients is obtained with the BHandHLYP/cc-pVTZ method, closely followed by the composite methods and the BMK/cc-pVTZ method. All these methods succeed to reproduce the experimental rate coefficients within a factor 4. To obtain an accurate prediction of both thermochemical and kinetic data for organosulfur compounds, the commonly used composite methods G3B3 and CBS-QB3 and the BMK/cc-pVTZ method prove to be valuable tools.