PNNL

Abstract

Hydroxyl substituted phenoxide, o-, m-, p- HO(C6H4)O– and the corresponding neutral radicals are important species, in particularly, the p- isomer pair is directly involved in the proton-coupled electron transfer in biological photosynthetic centers. Here we report the first spectroscopic study of these species in the gas phase by means of low-temperature photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) and ab initio calculations. Vibrationally resolved PES spectra were obtained at 70 K and several photon energies for each anion, directly yielding electron affinity (EA) and electronic structure information of the corresponding hydroxyphenoxyl radical. The EAs are found to vary with OH positions, from 1.990 ± 0.010 eV (p-) to 2.315 ± 0.010 (o-) and 2.330 ± 0.010 (m-). Theoretical calculations were carried out to identify the optimized molecular structures for both anions and neutral radicals. The electron binding energies and excited state energies were also calculated to compare with experimental data. Excellent agreement is found between calculations and experiments. Molecular orbital analyses indicate strong OH anti-bonding interaction with the phenoxide moiety for o- as well as p- isomers, whereas such interaction is largely missing for the m- anion. The variance of EAs among three isomers is interpreted primarily due to the interplay between two competing factors: the OH anti-bonding interaction and H-bonding stabilization (existed only in the o- anion).