Abstract
Isocyanic acid (HNCO) is a toxic atmospheric constituent emitted by biomass burning and catalytic converters in car engines. The major sinks for HNCO were thought to be heterogeneous loss processes and dry deposition in the free troposphere. Based on the rigorous electronic structure calculations and kinetic simulations, here we show that HNCO is highly reactive to the stabilized Criegee intermediates (sCIs, e.g., CH2OO and syn-CH3CHOO) in the atmosphere. The energetically most preferable reaction route refers to a concerted mechanism by which the H atom is transferred from N of HNCO to the terminal O site of sCIs with simultaneous addition of N or O in HNCO to the other CH2 (resp. CHCH3) end, leading to the highly exothermic HOOCH2NCO and HOOCH2OCN (resp. HOOCH(CH3)NCO and HOOCH(CH3)OCN). The precursor complexes are stabilized via H-bond/p-π interactions and the barriers are submerged below reactants. The reaction of HNCO with CH2OO occurs with an average rate coefficient of 8×10-13 cm3molecule−1s−1 at 275 K and 760 Torr, which is a factor of 103 faster than the HNCO + OH reaction. The total rate coefficients exhibit negative temperature dependence under the tropospheric conditions. sCIs might be one of the potential sinks for the budget of HNCO in the atmosphere.
Data availability
The authors declare that all data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its supplementary information files and from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (no. 2021YFB2401400).
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M.Z. performed the electronic structural calculations and analyzed the data. H.H. performed kinetic calculations and analyzed the data. B.W. supervised the project and wrote the paper.
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Zhang, M., Hou, H. & Wang, B. Potential role of stabilized criegee intermediates in the reactivity of isocyanic acid. Commun Chem (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-026-01919-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-026-01919-6
