Relative methylmercury cation affinities in the gas phase determined by high pressure mass spectrometry

Abstract

A pulsed electron beam, high pressure mass spectrometer has been used to determine equilibrium constants for the exchange of CH3Hg+ between bases; [Formula: see text] A series of aromatic, hydrocarbon bases has been studied at 417 K and several nitrogen bases have been studied at 580 K. There is a good linear correlation between differences in CH3Hg+ affinity (ΔG0) and H+ affinity for bases in each series. The single sulfur base examined ((C3H7)2S) shows anomalously high relative affinity for CH3Hg+ compared with H+ while two oxygen bases (CH3COOCH3 and C6H5NO2) show lesser relative affinity. These results are in qualitative agreement with the hard–soft acid base theory. ΔH0 and ΔS0 values have been obtained from Arrhenius plots. For a pair of aromatic bases (toluene–ethylbenzene) ΔH0 is of the same magnitude as that for H+ and ΔS0 may be calculated using partition functions for translation and external rotation. For toluene/methylacetate the difference in binding energy is much greater for H+ than for CH3Hg+ and a similar calculation of ΔS0 gives a result not consistent with the experimental value.