Ionization bond rearrangement on cover of PCCP
Work from an international team including researchers from France, Tunisia, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, and the University of Oxford has been highlighted on the front cover of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP) this month.
The team showed that removal of two electrons from the linear OCS molecule most often results not in immediate bond breaking, but in isomerisation to COS2+. The COS2+ molecule then dissociates to S+ + CO+, and also to the unexpected C+ + SO+.
This sort of skeletal rearrangement may be a widespread consequence of double ionisation with relevance in many high-energy situations.
You can read more about their study in the PCCP paper here.
