An ab initio study of the thermal decomposition of dichlorosilane

The reactants, products and transition states for the two lowest channels of the thermal decomposition of dichlorosilane were optimized at the MP2/6–311 + G(2df, 2p) and QCISD/6–311 + G(2df, 2p) levels of theory. Corrections to the energy were calculated at the QCISD(T)/6–311G(2df, 2p) and MP2/6–311 + + G(3df,3pd) levels of theory and were used to estimated the QCISD(T)/6–311 + + G(3df,3pd) energies. The barrier for the SiH2Cl2 → SiHCl + HCl decomposition channel is found to be 1.9 kcal/mol lower than for SiH2Cl2 → SiCl2 + H2.