Posts Tagged ‘Hydronium’

Autoionization of hydrogen fluoride.

Sunday, April 24th, 2016

The autoionization of water involves two molecules transfering a proton to give hydronium hydroxide, a process for which the free energy of reaction is well known. Here I ask what might happen with the next element along in the periodic table, F.

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Azane oxide, a tautomer of hydroxylamine.

Friday, April 15th, 2016

In the previous post I described how hydronium hydroxide or H3O+…HO, an intermolecular tautomer of water, has recently been observed captured inside an organic cage[1] and how the free-standing species in water can be captured computationally with the help of solvating water bridges. Here I explore azane oxide or H3N+-O, a tautomer of the better known hydroxylamine (H2N-OH).

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References

  1. M. Stapf, W. Seichter, and M. Mazik, "Unique Hydrogen‐Bonded Complex of Hydronium and Hydroxide Ions", Chemistry – A European Journal, vol. 21, pp. 6350-6354, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/chem.201406383

Hydronium hydroxide: the why of pH 7.

Thursday, April 14th, 2016

Ammonium hydroxide (NH4+…OH) can be characterised quantum mechanically when stabilised by water bridges connecting the ion-pairs. It is a small step from there to hydronium hydroxide, or H3O+…OH. The measured concentrations [H3O+] ≡ [OH] give rise of course to the well-known pH 7 of pure water, and converting this ionization constant to a free energy indicates that the solvated ion-pair must be some ~19.1 kcal/mol higher in free energy than water itself. So can a quantum calculation reproduce pH7 for water?

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