Electric nuclear quadrupole coupling reveals dissociation of HCl with a few water molecules

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Xie, Fan; Tikhonov, Denis S.; Schnell, Melanie
• 署名单位: Helmholtz Association; Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY); University of Kiel
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-9383
• DOI: 10.1126/science.ado7049
• 发表日期: 2024-06-28
• 页码: 1435-1440
• 关键词: hydrogen-bond cooperativity; gas-phase; infrared-spectroscopy; rotational spectrum; helium nanodroplets; clusters; DYNAMICS; solvation; chemistry; ammonium

摘要

Investigating the dissociation of acids in the presence of a limited number of water molecules is crucial for understanding various elementary chemical processes. In our study, focusing on HCl(H2O)(n) clusters (where HCl is hydrogen chloride and H2O is water) formed in a cold and isolated jet expansion, we used the nuclear quadrupole coupling tensor obtained through rotational spectroscopy to decipher the nature of the hydrogen-chlorine (H-Cl) chemical bond in a microaqueous environment. For n = 1 to 4, the H-Cl bond is covalent. At n = 5 and 7, the contact ion pair of H3O+Cl- is spontaneously formed within the hydrogen bond networks of book and cube acid-water clusters, respectively.