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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Reaction Kinetics and Combustion Dynamics of I4O9 and Aluminum Mixtures
Published on: November 7, 2016
Gas-Phase Fragmentation of Aluminum Oxide Nitrate Anions Driven by Reactive Oxygen Radical Ligands
Johnny Lightcap1, Thomas H Hester1, Kurt Kamena1
1Department of Chemistry, The University of Alabama , Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, United States.
Abstract:
Gas-phase metal nitrate anions are known to yield a variety of interesting metal oxides upon fragmentation. The aluminum nitrate anion complexes, Al(NO3)4(-) and AlO(NO3)3(-) were generated by electrospray ionization and studied with collision-induced dissociation and energy-resolved mass spectrometry. Four different decomposition processes were observed, the loss of NO3(-), NO3(•), NO2(•), and O2. The oxygen radical ligand in AlO(NO3)3(-) is highly reactive and drives the formation of AlO(NO3)2(-) upon loss of NO3(•), AlO2(NO3)2(-) upon NO2(•) loss, or Al(NO2)(NO3)2(-) upon abstraction of an oxygen atom from a neighboring nitrate ligand followed by loss of O2. The AlO2(NO3)2(-) fragment also undergoes elimination of O2. The mechanism for O2 elimination requires oxygen atom abstraction from a nitrate ligand in both AlO(NO3)3(-) and AlO2(NO3)2(-), revealing the hidden complexity in the fragmentation of these clusters.
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