Ion-molecule reactions of formic acid. II. Rearrangement reactions

Abstract

Rate coefficients for a number of rearrangement reactions of positive ions with HCOOH are reported. These reactions may be represented by the general equation

                           Y⁺ + HCOOH → products

Most reactant ions resulted in the fragmentation product HCO⁺ and five reactant ions, N⁺, O⁺, CN⁺, N₂⁺ and CO⁺, were observed to have rate coefficients much greater than predicted by the ADO model. An explanation for the high rates observed for these reactant ions is proposed and involves dissociative charge transfer by a non-orbiting electron-jump mechanism.