Transition Metal Ions in the Gas Phase

Abstract

For several years we have been studying the chemistry of atomic transition metal ions with simple organic molecules. This research was stimulated by our interest in examining the consequences of oxidation and reduction of transition metals in their gas phase ion molecule chemistry. This is an area of chemistry, redox chemistry, which has received little attention from those of us interested in gas phase chemical dynamics. An initial discovery in our investigations was that atomic transition metal ions are quite subject to oxidative addition; a concerted process in which XY adds to M so that the metal is inserted into the XY bond to form XMY. As Pearson notes [1], it has only been in the last 15 years that oxidative addition has been recognized as an important elementary reaction. In fact our results appear to be the first direct observation of oxidative addition to transition metals in the gas phase. We have been particularly interested in oxidative addition processes that involve formation of metal carbon bonds. We have obtained evidence that such processes occur in alkyl halides and alcohols [2–4], in halobenzenes [5] and in alkanes [6,7].