Luminol, the first
discovered and man-made effective chemiluminescence
(CL) system, is the best known and one of the most widely used CL
materials. The chemiluminescent process of the luminol CL has not
yet been fully elucidated, although the decomposition of 1,2-dioxane-3,6-dione
dianion (CP
2–) is verified to be the
key step to produce light emitter. However, the mechanisms of the CP
2– decomposition and the effective singlet
chemiexcitation are totally unknown, which is the outstanding obstacle
to comprehending luminol CL. In the present work, by means of the
state-of-the-art multireference computation and the nonadiabatic molecular
dynamics (NAMD) simulation, the decomposition mechanism of CP
2– is clearly revealed. A stepwise single electron
transfer from the aminophthaloyl to the O–O bond initiates
the decomposition of CP
2–, and the
light emitter is produced via the two crossings of the potential energy
surfaces of the ground state (S0) and the first singlet
excited state (S1). The NAMD simulated quantum yield of
the light emitter demonstrates that the located two conical intersections
control an effective nonadiabatic pathway in luminol CL. The proposed
mechanism of “two conical intersections” is suitable
not only to luminol but also to other CL materials with cyclic peroxide
as the chemical energy provider.