Water allows the rotational detection of triacetone troperoxide
Abstract
The easy synthesis of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) makes it an explosive widely used by terrorists. Moreover, TATP has the drawback of being difficult to detect with typical procedures. To ease the detection of TATP, here we propose the use of rotational spectroscopy as a highly selective detection technique. However, the main conformer of TATP has no dipole moment to allow its detection by rotational spectroscopy. To face this, water has been used to detect TATP in gas-phase, identifying their monohydrate and dihydrated species. In the monohydrated cluster, the interaction between water and TATP is characterized by a four-center trifurcated Ow-H···O HB, further stabilized by a weak four center C-H····Ow chelated interaction. Under our knowledge, this is the first time that this kind of interactions have been identified in the gas-phase. The dihydrated complex maintains the structure of the monohydrated, with the second water forming a double HB to the first water and the nearest TATP endocyclic oxygen atom.
Origin : Files produced by the author(s)