Coulomb explosion upon electron attachment to a four-coordinate monoanionic metal complex

Anders Baardseth Nielsen; Preben Hvelplund; Bo Liu; Steen Brøndsted Nielsen; Shigeo Tomita

doi:10.1021/ja0360182

Coulomb explosion upon electron attachment to a four-coordinate monoanionic metal complex

J Am Chem Soc. 2003 Aug 13;125(32):9592-3. doi: 10.1021/ja0360182.

Authors

Anders Baardseth Nielsen¹, Preben Hvelplund, Bo Liu, Steen Brøndsted Nielsen, Shigeo Tomita

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, Ny Munkegade, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

PMID: 12904017
DOI: 10.1021/ja0360182

Abstract

Electron capture to monoanionic metal complexes in high-energy collisions with sodium vapor is shown to occur with the formation of dianions. In this way, we prepared the small dianions Cr(SCN)42-, Fe(CN)42-, Pt(NO2)22-, and Pt(C2O4)22- in the gas phase. The Cr(SCN)42- dianion Coulomb explodes into Cr(SCN)3- and SCN- with a release of kinetic energy (3.2 +/- 0.4 eV) into translational energy of the fragments. The scheme provides a way to study charge dissociation reactions of molecular dianions that are too short-lived to survive extraction from the ion source.