Gas Phase Studies of Organic Reaction Mechanisms. An Experiment and Ab Initio Study: The Development of Ionic Platforms for Chemistry

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With support from the Organic Dynamics Program of the Chemistry Division of NSF, within the Research in Undergraduate Institutions Program, Professor Scott Gronert will conduct research on gas phase dianions, using electrospray mass spectrometry as the diagnostic instrument, at San Francisco State University. The gas phase ion community has worked extensively with monoanion reactants, and a problem frequently encountered is inability to detect the neutral products. This work offers a solution: use dianions, from which the neutral products will actually be monoanions, not neutrals, and thus detectable by mass spectrometry. In this way branching ratios between nucleophilic substitution and elimination, for example, become determinable experimentally. The work will be supported by ab initio computational studies. Understanding of substitutions and eliminations, well-known reactions familiar to all students of undergraduate organic chemistry, is now possible at a very fundamental level. This work will compare experimental yields and theoretically calculated product yields for gas-phase reactions of these and other types. The project will involve 4-6 students per year and all will be exposed to the interplay between theory and experiment.