title: Gas-phase reaction of CeVO5(+) cluster ions with C2H4: the reactivity of cluster bonded peroxides.
abstract: Cerium-vanadium oxide cluster cations CeVO5(+) were generated by laser ablation, mass-selected using a quadrupole mass filter, thermalized through collisions with helium atoms, and then reacted with ethene molecules in a linear ion trap reactor. The cluster reactions have been characterized by time-of-flight mass spectrometry and density functional theory calculations. The CeVO5(+) cluster has a closed-shell electronic structure and contains a peroxide (O2(2-)) unit. The cluster bonded O2(2-) species is reactive enough to oxidize a C2H4 molecule to generate C2H4O2 that can be an acetic acid molecule. Atomic oxygen radicals (O(-)˙), superoxide radicals (O2(-)˙), and peroxides are the three common reactive oxygen species. The reactivity of cluster bonded O(-)˙ and O2(-)˙ radicals has been widely studied while the O2(2-) species were generally thought to be much less reactive or inert toward small molecules under thermal collision conditions. This work is among the first to report the reactivity of the peroxide unit on transition metal oxide clusters with hydrocarbon molecules, to the best of our knowledge.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cluster Science, The Institute for Chemical Physics, School of Chemistry, Beijing Institute of Technology, 100081, Beijing, People's Republic of China. majiabi@bit.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jia-Bi
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Jing-Heng
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: Sheng-Gui
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: He