Abstract:
Negatively charged organic uranyl species (HOUO
2OH), prepared with uranyl acetate using extractive electrospray ionization multiple-stage tandem mass spectrometry, reacted with oxygen to yield a novel UO
5 anion species in the gas phase. The molecular structure of UO
5 was confirmed by using collision-induced dissociation (CID) mass spectrometry experiments. The effects of experimental parameters on the yield of UO
5 anion were experimentally evaluated. The data have shown that the electron cloud radius (
r) of the polyatom anion (e.g., HOUO
2OH) was tunable within the range
rinert≤
rReactive≤
rdecomposition by changing the collision energy of CID. This mechanism can be further used to catalyze a certain type of chemical reactions.