Alkaline hydrolysis pathway of 2,4-dinitroanisole verified by 18O tracer experiment

Abstract The environmental fate of insensitive munitions compounds, such as 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN), has drawn increasing attention because of their growing use in military activities. One of the main attenuation mechanisms of DNAN degradation in aqueous environments is alkaline hydrolysis. We investigated the pathway for alkaline hydrolysis of DNAN at pH 12 by a combined approach of experiment and theory. An experiment using 18O-labeled water was performed to verify the reaction pathway. Calculated free energies for two putative reaction pathways by density-functional theory optimized at the SMD(Pauling)/M06-2X/6-311++G(2d,2p) level including explicit solvation of DNAN by 10 H2O molecules and one OH− ion gave a prediction in agreement with the experimental result. The verified reaction pathway for alkaline hydrolysis of DNAN is a SN2Ar nucleophilic aromatic substitution with a methoxy leaving group ( OCH3) at the C1 site.