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Direct Room‐Temperature Conversion of Methane into Protonated Formaldehyde: The Gas‐Phase Chemistry of Mercury among the Zinc Triad Oxide Cations
Author(s) -
Yue Lei,
Zhou Shaodong,
Sun Xiaoyan,
Schlangen Maria,
Schwarz Helmut
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201712405
Subject(s) - formaldehyde , methane , mercury (programming language) , zinc , chemistry , protonation , inorganic chemistry , gas phase , triad (sociology) , oxide , environmental chemistry , organic chemistry , ion , psychology , psychoanalysis , computer science , programming language
In thermal reactions of methane with diatomic metal oxides [MO] .+ of the zinc triad (M=Zn, Cd, Hg), protonated formaldehyde [CH 2 OH] + is generated as the major product only for the [HgO] .+ /CH 4 couple. Mechanistic insight is provided by high‐level quantum‐chemical calculations, and relativistic effects are suggested to be the root cause for the unexpected thermal production of [CH 2 OH] + from [HgO] .+ /CH 4 .