An organic radical monohydrate complex is detected in vacuum isolation at low temperature by FTIR supersonic jet spectroscopy for the first time. It shown to exhibit a rich conformational and vibrational coupling dynamics, which can be drastically reduced appropriate isotope substitution. Its detection with new gas recycling infrared spectrometer demonstrates thermal metastability of gaseous TE...

The literature on gas phase nucleophilic substitution reactions at aliphatic carbon has been reviewed. The emphasis has been on journal articles published in the period 1990–2001. The present review outlines our current understanding of concepts such as potential energy surfaces, structure–energy relationships, microsolvation, and dynamical and mechanistic details based on both experimental and...

We have investigated the effect of microsolvation on the low-lying pure shape π* resonances of thymine. Static-exchange R-matrix calculations for elastic electron scattering from microhydated thymine, i.e., Thy-(H2O)n with n = 1,2,3,5 are discussed. We look at the additive effect of water molecules hydrogen-bonding to thymine. The results for Thy-(H2O)5 show that both π* resonances appear at lo...

We present calculations for the mechanism and the barrier heights of tautomerization of adenine. We find various pathways for the 9(H) <--> 7(H) and 9(H) <--> 3(H) tautomerization. One mechanism for the 9(H) --> 7(H) tautomerization involves an sp(3)- or carbene-type intermediate, whereas the other proceeds via imine intermediates. Tautomerization from the 9(H) tautomer to 7(H) or 3(H) is predi...

We present an exhaustive stochastic search of the quantum conformational spaces of the (CH(3)O)(2)PO(2)(-) + nH(2)O (n = 1,2,3) systems. We uncover structural, conformational and energetic features of the problem. As in the isolated species, clusters containing the gauche-gauche (gg) conformation of dimethylphosphate (DMP(-)) are energetically preferred, however, contributions from hydrated gau...

Using high-level quantum mechanical calculations and various models to account for solvation effects, monomers and dimers of fluoromethyllithium and chloromethyllithium carbenoids are studied in the gas phase and in dimethyl ether solvent. A combination of explicit microsolvation and a continuum reaction field is required to account fully for the structural and energetic effects of solvation. O...