Reactions of V4O10+ cluster ions with simple inorganic and organic molecules

Abstract

The reactivity of mass-selected V4O10+ cluster ions toward hydrocarbon molecules including CH4, C2H4, and C2H6 was explored in the references case by case. Herein, further systematic studies on the reactions of V4O10+ with simple inorganic and organic molecules (H2, CO, CH4, C2H2, C2H4, and C2H6) are presented. The vanadium oxide cluster ions are prepared by laser ablation and the V4O10+ clusters are selected by a quadrupole mass filter and interacted with the simple molecules in a hexapole reaction cell. The reactant and product ions are detected by a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Hydrogen and oxygen atom transfer reactions are observed. Density functional theory calculations are carried out for the reaction mechanism of V4O10++H2. The oxygen atom transfer (OAT) channel V4O10++H2→V4O9++H2O is much more exothermic than the hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) channel V4O10++H2→V4O10H++H whereas the former is less favorable than the later in terms of the reaction kinetics. The computational result is in good agreement with the experiment that the HAT (H2 splitting) rather than the OAT (water formation) is observed for V4O10++H2.