Abstract:
Water is one of the most important compounds and plays an important role in biological process, chemical synthesis and material science. Thus, studies about water and related particles water radical cations are always the top research fields. In this work, water dimer radical cation (H
2O)
2+· was prepared using home-made low energy corona discharge device at ambient condition, and its structure was further studied using collision induced dissociation (CID) experiment and isotope labelling method. The dissociation results showed that (H
2O)
2+· (m/z 36) will lose OH· and H
2O to give ions of m/z 19 (H
2OH
+) and m/z 18 (H
2O
+·), competitively, revealing that (H
2O)
2+· can exist in two different structures, including H
2OH
+—·OH (hydrogen atom bound structure (A)) and H
2O∴OH
2+ (oxygen-oxygen atom bound structure (B)). Structure A is asymmetry and structure B is symmetry. Furthermore, isotopic labeled experiments were conducted using deuterated water (D
2O) and
18O-enriched water (H
218O). The dissociation of (D
2O)
2+· (m/z 40) gave the corresponding protonated water D
2OD+ (m/z 22) and water radical cation (D
2O)
+· (m/z 20). Dissociation of (H
2O·D
2O)
+· (m/z 38) produced the protonated water H
2OD
+ (m/z 20)/D
2OH
+ (m/z 21), and water radical cation H
2O
+· (m/z 18), HOD
+· (m/z 19), D
2O (m/z 20)
+·. In
18O-enriched water (H
218O) labelled isotopic experiments, (H
2O·H
218O)
+· (m/z 38) also was dissociated into its corresponding protonated water H
2OH
+ (m/z 19)/H
218OH
+ (m/z 21) and water radical cation H
2O
+· (m/z 18) and H
218O
+· (m/z 18). The CID and the isotope labelling results indicated that water dimer radical cation (D
2O)
2+·, (H
2O·D
2O)
+· and (H
2O· H
218O)
+·also exist A and B two structured forms. In conclusion, two structures of water dimer radical cation (H
2O)
2+· will further reveal that mass spectrometry may help to elucidate chemical mechanism related with (H
2O)
2+· in the biological processes and chemical reactions.