Silver ion binding to the organophosphorus pesticide diazinon and hydrolytic pathways revealed by mass spectrometric and NMR studies

Abstract

This paper describes the first study of the interactions of Ag+ with the organophosphorus (OP) insecticide diazinon, 1. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) with corroborative collision-induced dissociation-mass spectrometry (CID-MS) demonstrates that 1 forms a bidentate chelate with Ag+. The hydrolysis products of 1, the pyrimidinol (PY) and O,O-diethylphosphorothioic acid (PA), are also found to bind to Ag+ via N (PY) and S (PA) Lewis base sites, respectively. 31P and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra in solution, followed over time with varying ratios of Ag+ to 1, confirm the MS evidence and show Ag+ catalysis of hydrolysis (e.g., complete hydrolysis of 1 in ∼5 min (first-order half-life = 3 × 10−4 d; kobs = 2 × 103 d−1)) with equimolar Ag+; this represents an approximate 150 000-fold enhancement in hydrolysis with Ag+ as compared to its absence. A mechanism for the enhanced hydrolysis is proposed in which bidentate binding of Ag+ to S of the P=S electrophilic site in tandem with binding to N of the leaving group stabilizes the SN2(P) transition state relative to the ground state; this effect is described by qualitative energy profiles.