Gas-phase complexes containing the uranyl ion and acetone

We report here that electrospray ionization (ESI) of uranyl nitrate dissolved in a mixture of H ₂O and acetone causes the formation of doubly charged, gas-phase complexes containing UO ₂ 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 H ₂O in the ion trap. At no point was complete removal of ligands to generate the UO ₂ 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.