Reaction of formaldehyde cation with molecular hydrogen: effects of collision energy and H2CO+ vibrations.

The effects on the title reaction of collision energy (E(col)) and five H(2)CO(+) vibrational modes have been studied over a center-of-mass E(col) range from 0.1 to 2.3 eV. Electronic structure and Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus calculations were used to examine properties of various complexes and transition states that might be important. Only the hydrogen abstraction (HA) product channel is observed, and despite being exoergic, HA has an appearance energy of approximately 0.4 eV, consistent with a transition state found in the electronic structure calculations. A precursor complex-mediated mechanism might possibly be involved at very low E(col), but the dominant mechanism is direct over the entire E(col) range. The magnitude of the HA cross section is strongly, and mode specifically affected by H(2)CO(+) vibrational excitation, however, vibrational energy has no effect on the appearance energy.