Theoretical study of the electron attachment dissociation of methyl halides and freon molecules: CF 3 Cl, CF 2 Cl 2 , CFCl 3

Abstract A possible electron attachment dissociation process to destroy chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) at low altitude is proposed. To study this we have used, in this paper, Wu model where the dissociation energy is obtained from the potential curves of the neutral and anionic molecules to investigate this possibility. The potential curves are calculated by quantum chemical methods. These dissociation energies have been determined for methyl halides for CHCl 3 , CH 2 Cl 2 and CH 3 Cl and for CFCl 3 , CF 2 Cl 2 and CF 3 Cl molecules. It appears that molecules, in this series, with most fluorine atoms have the highest dissociation energy.