In Situ Generation of HCN for Mass Spectrometric Studies

Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) for use in ion preparation can be generated in the gas phase by the neutral–neutral reaction of trimethylsilyl cyanide (Me3SiCN) and water in a flowing afterglow mass spectrometer. We demonstrate that the approach can be used to generate a wide range of HCN solvated ions such as F−(HCN), Cl−(HCN), CN−(HCN), PhNO2·−(HCN), Me3SiO−(HCN),and PhSiF4−(HCN), many of which are otherwise difficult to generate. The bond dissociation energy of CN−(HCN), generated by using this approach, has been measured by using energy-resolved collision-induced issociation (CID) to be 0.87 ± 0.07 eV.