The highly exothermic hydrogen abstraction reaction H2Te + OH → H2O + TeH: comparison with analogous reactions for H2Se and H2S

The "gold standard" CCSD(T) method is adopted along with the correlation consistent basis sets up to aug-cc-pV5Z-PP to study the mechanism of the hydrogen abstraction reaction H2Te + OH. The predicted geometries and vibrational frequencies for reactants and products are in good agreement with the available experimental results. With the ZPVE corrections, the transition state in the favorable pathway of this reaction energetically lies 1.2 kcal mol(-1) below the reactants, which is lower than the analogous relative energies for the H2Se + OH reaction (-0.7 kcal mol(-1)), the H2S + OH reaction (+0.8 kcal mol(-1)) and the H2O + OH reaction (+9.0 kcal mol(-1)). Accordingly, the exothermic reaction energies for these related reactions are predicted to be 47.8 (H2Te), 37.7 (H2Se), 27.1 (H2S), and 0.0 (H2O) kcal mol(-1), respectively. Geometrically, the low-lying reactant complexes for H2Te + OH and H2Se + OH are two-center three-electron hemibonded structures, whereas those for H2S + OH and H2O + OH are hydrogen-bonded. With ZPVE and spin-orbit coupling corrections, the relative energies for the reactant complex, transition state, product complex, and the products for the H2Te + OH reaction are estimated to be -13.1, -1.0, -52.0, and -52.6 kcal mol(-1), respectively. Finally, twenty-eight DFT functionals have been tested systematically to assess their ability in describing the potential energy surface of the H2Te + OH reaction. The best of these functionals for the corresponding energtics are -9.9, -1.4, -46.4, and -45.4 kcal mol(-1) (MPWB1K), or -13.1, -2.4, -57.1, and -54.6 kcal mol(-1) (M06-2X), respectively.