Gas-Phase Water-Mediated Equilibrium Between Methylglyoxal
Gas-phase water-mediated equilibrium between SPECIAL FEATURE methylglyoxal and its geminal diol Jessica L. Axsona,b, Kaito Takahashic, David O. De Haand, and Veronica Vaidaa,b,1 aDepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and bCooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Campus Box 215, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309; cThe Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, P.O. Box 23-166, Taipei, Taiwan 10617, Republic of China; and dDepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of San Diego, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110 Edited by Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts, University of California, Irvine, CA, and approved December 15, 2009 (received for review October 20, 2009) In aqueous solution, aldehydes, and to a lesser extent ketones, mined computationally that the aldehydic C ¼ O is more favor- −1 hydrate to form geminal diols. We investigate the hydration of ably hydrated in solution (ΔG ¼ −1.4 kcal mol ) than the −1 methylglyoxal (MG) in the gas phase, a process not previously ketonic C ¼ O(ΔG ¼þ2.5 kcal mol ) (21). In solution, MG considered to occur in water-restricted environments. In this study, is present primarily as MGD (60% diol to 40% tetrol) with we spectroscopically identified methylglyoxal diol (MGD) and the aldehydic group forming a geminal diol (21, 23). MGD obtained the gas-phase partial pressures of MG and MGD. These has a lower vapor pressure than MG, which allows the molecule results, in conjunction with the relative humidity, were used to ob- to partition more easily into the particle phase, lending to the tain the equilibrium constant, KP, for the water-mediated hydration formation of SOA.
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