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

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 (H-2, 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+ + H-2. The oxygen atom transfer (OAT) channel V4O10+ + H-2 -> V4O9+ + H2O is much more exothermic than the hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) channel V4O10+ + H-2 -> V4O10+ + 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 (H-2 splitting) rather than the OAT (water formation) is observed for V4O10+ + H-2. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.