Negative ion formation in potassium–nitromethane collisions

Ion-pair formation in gaseous nitromethane (CH(3)NO(2)) induced by electron transfer has been studied by investigating the products of collisions between fast potassium atoms and nitromethane molecules using a crossed molecular-beam technique. The negative ions formed in such collisions were analysed using time-of-flight mass spectroscopy. The six most dominant product anions are NO(2)(-), O(-), CH(3)NO(2)(-), OH(-), CH(2)NO(2)(-) and CNO(-). By using nitromethane-d(3) (CD(3)NO(2)), we found that previous mass 17 amu assignment to O(-) delayed fragment, is in the present experiment may be unambiguously assigned to OH(-). The formation of CH(2)NO(2)(-) may be explained in terms of dissociative electron attachment to highly vibrationally excited molecules.