Gas Phase Ion Chemistry

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The Experimental Physical Chemistry Program supports Michael T. Bowers of the University of California-Santa Barbara in his continuing studies of sigma bond activation at transition metal centers. Prof. Bowers will investigate clustering of second row metals with dihydrogen, reactions of first and second row metals with methane and other small alkanes, the role of different ligands in tuning reactivity, and cluster assisted sigma-bond activation. In addition, he will focus on a new effort studying macromolecular systems. He will exploit gas phase H/D exchange as a complementary method for conformational analysis of biologically interesting systems; specifically, he will investigate polymer conformation, folding dynamics and energetics as a function of repeat number. He also plans to study host/guest systems, in particular the influence of solvation on host selectivity. To support the biological studies, Prof. Bowers will construct a bright electrospray based mass spectrometer. Gas phase ion chemistry and the related discipline of mass spectrometry have made huge strides during the past decade, especially in the past five years. Much of this progress is due to technological breakthroughs in detector design, ion sources and the availability of bigger, faster and especially cheaper computers. Further development of this powerful analytical tool as applied to bond activation at metal centers will improve understanding of the behavior of heterogeneous catalysts, used extensively in many industrial processes. Prof. Bower's present effort focusing on macromolecular systems will provide structural information on these larger species.