Mechanistic aspects of gas-phase hydrogen-atom transfer from methane to [CO](·+) and [SiO](·+) : why do they differ?

Abstract

The reactivity of the two diatomic congeneric systems [CO](·+) and [SiO](·+) towards methane has been investigated by means of mass spectrometry and quantum-chemical calculations. While [CO](·+) gives rise to three different reaction channels, [SiO](·+) reacts only by hydrogen-atom transfer (HAT) from methane under thermal conditions. A theoretical analysis of the respective HAT processes reveals two distinctly different mechanistic pathways for [CO](·+) and [SiO](·+), and a comparison to the higher metal oxides of Group 14 emphasizes the particular role of carbon as a second-row p element.