We report here that electrospray ionization (ESI) of uranyl nitrate dissolved in a mixture of H2O and acetone causes the formation of doubly charged, gas-phase complexes containing UO2 2+ “solvated” by neutral ligands. Using mild conditions, the dominant species observed in the ESI mass spectrum contained the uranyl ion coordinated by five acetone ligands, consistent with proposed most-stable structures in the solution phase. However, chemical mass shift data, ion peak shapes, and a plot of fractional ion abundance versus ion desolvation temperature suggest that in the gas phase, and under the ion-trapping and ejection conditions imposed, complexes with five equatorial acetone ligands are less stable than those with four. Multiple-stage tandem mass spectrometry showed that uranyl-acetone complexes dissociate via the elimination of acetone ligands and through pathways that involve reactive collisions with adventitious H2O in the ion trap. At no point was complete removal of ligands to generate the UO2 2+ ion achieved. ESI was also used to generate complex ions of similar composition and ligand number but different charge state for an investigation of the influence of complex charge on the tendency to add ligands by gas-phase association reactions. We found that the addition of a fifth acetone molecule to complexes initially containing four equatorial ligands is more facile for the doubly charged species. The singly charged complex shows a significant back-reaction to eliminate the fifth ligand, suggesting an intrinsic difference in the preferred coordination number for the U(VI) and U(V) complexes in the gas phase.

Multiple-stage tandem mass spectrometry was used to characterize the dissociation pathways for complexes composed of (1) the uranyl ion, (2) nitrate or hydroxide, and (3) water or alcohol. The complex ions were derived from electrospray ionization (ESI) ϩ . The abundance of the species was greater than expected based on previous experimental measurements of the (slow) hydration rate for UO 2 ϩ when stored in the ion trap. To account for the production of the hydrated product, a reductive elimination reaction involving reactive collisions with water in the ion trap is proposed. T he speciation and reactivity of uranium is a topic of sustained interest because species-dependent chemistry [1] controls processes ranging from nuclear fuel processing [2] to mobility and fate in the geologic subsurface [3,4]. The solution chemistry of uranium is dominated by the uranyl dication, UO 2 2ϩ , which is known to form complexes with a range of ligands [1]. Specific interaction with solvent will significantly influence the physico-chemical behavior of the uranyl ion and its complexes, and this has motivated investigations of complex composition and stability using infrared spectroscopy and extended X-ray absorption fine structure [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Unfortunately, explicit control over the interactions of solvent and nonsolvent ligands with the uranyl ion is difficult, which makes the study of species-dependent uranium behavior complicated. To gain a better understanding of the intrinsic interactions between different uranyl species and solvent, we have begun an investigation of uranyl-anion complexes in the gas phase using ion-trap mass spectrometry (IT-MS). Several recent reports have demonstrated that intrinsic metal and metal complex chemistry can be investigated by the (controlled) addition of reagent gas to an ion trap [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], or by way of the presence of H 2 O and other small molecule contaminants within the He bath gas used to collisionally cool ions and improve trapping efficiency [23][24][25]. The reactions of uranium ions in the gas phase have been the subject of several earlier investigations. Studies by , and by Schwarz and coworkers [30] have probed the reactions between U ϩ and UO ϩ and organic compounds such as alkanes and alcohols. Armentrout and Beauchamp [31] investigated the oxidation of U ϩ using small molecules such as O 2 , CO, CO 2 , COS, and

The intrinsic hydration of three monopositive uranyl-anion complexes (UO 2 A) ϩ (where A ϭ acetate, nitrate, or hydroxide) was investigated using ion-trap mass spectrometry (IT-MS). The relative rates for the formation of the monohydrates [(UO 2 A)(H 2 O)] ϩ , with respect to the anion, followed the trend: Acetate Ն nitrate ӷ hydroxide. This finding was rationalized in terms of the donation of electron density by the strongly basic OH Ϫ to the uranyl metal center, thereby reducing the Lewis acidity of U and its propensity to react with incoming nucleophiles, viz., H 2 O. An alternative explanation is that the more complex acetate and nitrate anions provide increased degrees of freedom that could accommodate excess energy from the hydration reaction. The monohydrates also reacted with water, forming dihydrates and then trihydrates. , for which recent theoretical studies [5][6][7][8] have suggested that strong interactions between the cation and solvent molecules, with significant charge transfer, cause the solvating species to behave like equatorial ligands. Therefore, specific interaction with solvent is likely to influence the physico-chemical behavior of the uranyl ion and its complexes in the environment. Unfortunately, explicit control over the interactions of solvent and non-solvent ligands with the uranyl ion is difficult, which makes the study of species-dependent uranium behavior complicated. To gain a better understanding of the intrinsic interactions between different uranium species and solvent, we have turned to investigations of uranyl-anion complexes in the gas phase. Recent studies have shown that ion-trap mass spectrometry can be used to probe intrinsic metal and metal-complex chemistry by exposing metal species to reagent gases deliberately added to the ion trap [9 -20], or to adventitious H 2 O present in the He bath gas used to collisionally cool ions and improve trapping efficiency [21][22][23][24]. Further motivating the present study is the fact that ion traps will shortly be used to characterize actinide speciation in samples from radioactive waste disposal sites, and a concise understanding of actinide behavior will be critical for correctly interpreting environmental data [25].We recently demonstrated that electrospray ionization (ESI) and multiple stage tandem mass spectrometry (MS) can be used to generate and characterize "solvated", gas-phase complexes featuring the uranyl ion coordinated by hydroxide, nitrate or a series of alkoxides [26]. In the pilot study reported here, ESI was used to produce gas-phase ions from solutions containing uranyl nitrate or uranyl acetate in deionized H 2 O. The dominant species generated by ESI were those having

In a previous report we showed that certain binary Ag(+)-amino acid complexes formed adduct ions by the attachment of a single water and methanol molecule when stored in an ion trap mass spectrometer: complexes with aliphatic amino acids and with 4-fluorophenylalanine formed the adduct ions whereas complexes with phenylalanine and tryptophan did not. In this study we compared the tendency of the Ag(+) complexes derived from phenylalanine, 4-fluorophenylalanine, 4-hydroxyphenylalanine (tyrosine), 4-bromophenylalanine, 4-nitrophenylalanine and aminocyclohexanepropionic acid to form water adducts when stored, without further activation, in the ion trap for times ranging from 1 to 500 ms. Because the donation of pi electron density to the Ag(+) ion is a likely determining factor in complex reactivity, our aim in the present study was to determine qualitatively the influence of para-position substituents on the aromatic ring on the formation of the water adducts. Our results show that the reactivity of the complexes is influenced significantly by the presence of the various substituents. Decreases in [M + Ag](+) ion abundance, and increases in adduct ion abundance, both measured as a function of storage time, follow the trend -NO(2) > -Br > -F > -OH > -H. The complex of Ag(+) with 4-nitrophenylalanine was nearly as reactive towards water as the Ag(+) complex with aminocyclohexanepropionic acid, the last being an amino acid devoid of pi character in the ring system. Collision induced dissociation of the [M + Ag](+) species derived from the amino acids produces, among other products, Ag(+) complexes with a para-substituted phenylacetaldehyde: complexes that also form adduct species when stored in the ion trap. The trends in adduct ion formation exhibited by the aldehyde-Ag(+) complex ions were similar to those observed for the precursor complexes of Ag(+) and the amino acids, confirming the influence of the ring substituent.

In this study we investigated the multi-stage collision-induced dissociation (CID) of N-terminally acetylated di-, tri- and tetrapeptides in the form of C-terminal ethyl, n-propyl, isopropyl, n-butyl and tert-butyl esters and cationized by the attachment of Li(+), Na(+) and Ag(+). While methyl ester versions of the metal cationized peptides primarily eliminate H(2)O following collisional activation and dissociation, the ethyl, propyl and butyl ester versions of the peptides exhibit a dissociation pathway consistent with gamma-hydrogen transfer to the C-terminal carbonyl group, with associated elimination of an alkene, in a McLafferty-type rearrangement. The rearrangement leaves a metal cationized, free-acid form of the peptide, as confirmed by comparing the multi-stage CID of rearrangement products generated from peptide esters with the CID of corresponding metal cationized free-acid peptides. The transfer of a gamma-hydrogen in the rearrangement reaction was confirmed by investigating the CID of ethyl esters for which the terminal methyl group was labeled with deuterium. We found that the rearrangement product was significantly more abundant, relative to other product ions, when derived from isopropyl and tert-butyl esters than from ethyl, n-propyl or n-butyl ester analogues.