On the cleavage of the peroxide OO bond in methyl hydroperoxide and dimethyl peroxide upon protonation

Abstract

The unimolecular decays of protonated methyl hydroperoxide and dimethyl peroxide have been studied by tandem mass spectrometric techniques in combination with isotopic labeling as well as computational methods. The potential-energy surfaces calculated at the BECKE3LYP/6-311++G∗∗ level of theory are in good agreement with the experimental findings. The decomposition of the protonated peroxides can be described by a general mechanistic scheme which involves rearrangement to proton-bridged complexes, i.e. [CH 2O-H-OH 2] + and [CH 2O-H-O(H)CH 3] +, respectively. When formed unimolecularly via rearrangement of the protonated peroxides, these complexes are rovibrationally highly excited; consequently, their fragmentations are affected remarkably as compared to proton-bound complexes of lower internal energy which are independently generated from the corresponding alcohol and carbonyl compounds in a chemical ionization plasma. For methyl hydroperoxide, both oxygen atoms can be protonated, giving rise to two isomeric cations with rather similar heats of formation but entirely different fragmentation behaviors. Cleavage of the OO bond in dimethyl peroxide upon protonation results in proton- as well as methyl-cation-bridged intermediates, e.g. [CH 2O-H-O(H)CH 3] + and [CH 2O-CH 3-OH 2] +.