Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.111, No.36, 8829-8843, 2007
Electron super-rich radicals in the gas phase. A neutralization-reionization mass spectrometric and a Initio/RRKM study of diaminohydroxymethyl and triaminomethyl radicals
Diaminohydroxymethyl (1) and triaminomethyl (2) radicals were generated by femtosecond collisional electron transfer to their corresponding cations (1(+) and 2(+), respectively) and characterized by neutralization-reionization mass spectrometry and ab initio/RRKM calculations at correlated levels of theory up to CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVTZ. Ion 1(+) was generated by gas-phase protonation of urea which was predicted to occur preferentially at the carbonyl oxygen with the 298 K proton affinity that was calculated as PA = 875 kJ mol(-1). Upon formation, radical I gains vibrational excitation through Franck-Condon effects and rapidly dissociates by loss of a hydrogen atom, so that no survivor ions are observed after reionization. Two conformers of 1, syn-1 and anti-1, were found computationally as local energy minima that interconverted rapidly by inversion at one of the amine groups with a < 7 kJ mol(-1) barrier. The lowest energy dissociation of radical I was loss of the hydroxyl hydrogen atom from anti-1 with E-TS = 65 kJ mol(-1). The other dissociation pathways of 1 were a hydroxyl hydrogen migration to an amine group followed by dissociation to H2N-C=O-center dot and NH3. Ion 2(+) was generated by protonation of gas-phase guanidine with a PA = 985 kJ mol(-1). Electron transfer to 2(+) was accompanied by large Franck-Condon effects that caused complete dissociation of radical 2 by loss of an H atom on the experimental time scale of 4,us. Radicals 1 and 2 were calculated to have extremely low ionization energies, 4.75 and 4.29 eV, respectively, which belong to the lowest among organic molecules and bracket the ionization energy of atomic potassium (4.34 eV). The stabilities of amino group containing methyl radicals, (CH2NH2)-C-center dot, (CH)-C-center dot(NH2)(2), and 2, were calculated from isodesmic hydrogen atom exchange with methane. The,pi-donating NH2 groups were found to increase the stability of the substituted methyl radicals, but the stabilities did not correlate with the radical ionization energies.