Issue 23, 2024

Fragmentation dynamics of the doubly charged aniline: the source of kinetically excited CnH3+ ions

Abstract

The goals of this work are to attempt to decipher if an aniline dication can isomerize to a picoline dication in a given astrochemical environment and if the dissociation of such dications could be a source of kinetically hot fragment ions, some of which could be of significance in the interstellar medium. Toward this purpose, the VUV-induced dication dissociation was investigated experimentally using ion–ion coincidence and computationally by optimizing various pathways. Contrary to previous reports, we show here that the dication of aniline is structurally too weak to retain its ring structure while following the dissociation pathways. A fragile open ring structure could lead to all the experimentally observed pathways of noticeable intensity. The significance of this, especially in terms of molecular dynamics, can be assessed by the fact that all the transformations were facilitated by specific hydrogen migration. A clear selectivity is seen where the dication of aniline was found to prefer a rearrangement of hydrogen within the ring rather than transferring from nitrogen to the ring, which is conventionally expected and has to do with the charge state and charge localization.

Graphical abstract: Fragmentation dynamics of the doubly charged aniline: the source of kinetically excited CnH3+ ions

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Dec 2023
Accepted
12 May 2024
First published
16 May 2024

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2024,26, 16540-16549

Fragmentation dynamics of the doubly charged aniline: the source of kinetically excited CnH3+ ions

M. Selvaraj, A. Subramani, K. Ramanathan, R. Richter, N. Pal, P. Bolognesi, L. Avaldi and U. R. Kadhane, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2024, 26, 16540 DOI: 10.1039/D3CP05882D

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