Evidence for the Formation of Pyrimidine Cations from the Sequential Reactions of Hydrogen Cyanide with the Acetylene Radical Cation.
Herein, we report the first direct evidence for the formation of pyrimidine ion isomers by sequential reactions of HCN with the acetylene radical cation in the gas phase at ambient temperature using the mass-selected variable temperature and pressure ion mobility technique. The formation and structures of the pyrimidine ion isomers are theoretically predicted via coupled cluster and density functional theory calculations. This ion-molecule synthesis may indicate that pyrimidine is produced in the gas phase in space environments before being incorporated into condensed-phase ices and transformed into nucleic acid bases such as uracil.
†Department of Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23284-2006, United States.
Ahmed M
AM
Hamid
‡NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, United States.|#Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, Petaluma, California 94952, United States.
Partha P
PP
Bera
‡NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, United States.
Timothy J
TJ
Lee
§Department of Chemistry, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
Saadullah G
SG
Aziz
§Department of Chemistry, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
Abdulrahman O
AO
Alyoubi
†Department of Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23284-2006, United States.
M Samy
MS
El-Shall
acetylene; astrochemistry; hydrogen cyanide; ion mobility; ion−molecule reactions; pyrimidine cation−HCN complex; pyrimidine ion