Issue 39, 2015

UV spectroscopy of cold ions as a probe of the protonation site

Abstract

The best determination of the most stable protonation site in aromatic molecules relies nowadays on the IR spectroscopy and ab initio calculations. It appears that these methods are not necessarily unambiguous and cannot always be safely employed. We present in this paper an example showing that electronic spectroscopy of cold ions complemented with ab initio calculations gives clear results on the protonation site. In the example given on the aminophenol isomers (in ortho, meta and para positions), the protonation site is assigned from the electronic spectroscopy and in particular we show that for the meta isomer the proton is not on the amino group as observed for the other isomers. It shows also that the protonation site is not conserved in the electrospray evaporation–ionization process.

Graphical abstract: UV spectroscopy of cold ions as a probe of the protonation site

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 Feb 2015
Accepted
10 Mar 2015
First published
12 Mar 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015,17, 25755-25760

UV spectroscopy of cold ions as a probe of the protonation site

G. Féraud, N. Esteves-López, C. Dedonder-Lardeux and C. Jouvet, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2015, 17, 25755 DOI: 10.1039/C5CP01122A

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