Gas phase hydration and deprotonation of the cyclic C3H3+ cation.: Solvation by acetonitrile, and comparison with the benzene radical cation

The binding energies of the first 5 H2O molecules to c-C3H3+ were determined by equilibrium measurements. The measured binding energies of the hydrated clusters of 9-12 kcal/mol are typical of carbon- based CH+center dot center dot center dot X hydrogen bonds. The ion solvation with the more polar CH3CN molecules results in stronger bonds consistent with the increased ion-dipole interaction. Ab initio calculations show that the lowest energy isomer of the c-C3H3+(H2O)(4) cluster consists of a cyclic water tetramer interacting with the c-C3H3+ ion, which suggests the presence of orientational restraint of the water molecules consistent with the observed large entropy loss. The c-C3H3+ ion is deprotonated by 3 or more H2O molecules, driven energetically by the association of the solvent molecules to form strongly hydrogen bonded (H2O)(n)H+ clusters. The kinetics of the associative proton transfer (APT) reaction C3H3+ + nH(2)O -> (H2O)(n)H+ + C3H2 center dot exhibits an unusually steep negative temperature coefficient of k = cT(-63 +/- 4) (or activation energy of -37 +/- 1 kcal mol(-1)). The behavior of the C3H3+/water system is exactly analogous to the benzene(+center dot)/water system, suggesting that the mechanism, kinetics and large negative temperature coefficients may be general to multibody APT reactions. These reactions can become fast at low temperatures, allowing ionized polycyclic aromatics to initiate ice formation in cold astrochemical environments.