Proton transfer reaction - mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) has become a reference technique in environmental science allowing for VOC monitoring with low detection limits. The recent introduction of time-of-flight mass analyzer (PTR-ToF-MS) opens new horizons in terms of mass resolution, acquisition time, and mass range. A standard procedure to perform quantitative VOC measurements with PTR-ToF-MS is to calibrate the instrument using a standard gas. However, given the number of compounds that can be simultaneously monitored by PTR-ToF-MS, such a procedure could become impractical, especially when standards are not readily available. In the present work we show that, under particular conditions, VOC concentration determinations based only on theoretical predictions yield good accuracy. We investigate a range of humidity and operating conditions and show that theoretical VOC concentration estimations are accurate when the effect of water cluster ions is negligible. We also show that PTR-ToF-MS can successfully be used to estimate reaction rate coefficients between H(3)O(+) and VOC at PTR-MS working conditions and find good agreement with the corresponding nonthermal theoretical predictions. We provide a tabulation of theoretical rate coefficients for a number of relevant volatile organic compounds at various energetic conditions and test the approach in a laboratory study investigating the oxidation of alpha-pinene.

Molecular dynamics simulations of liquid ethylene glycol described by the OPLS-AA force field were performed to gain insight into its hydrogen-bond structure. We use the population correlation function as a statistical measure for the hydrogen-bond lifetime. In an attempt to understand the complicated hydrogen-bonding, we developed new molecular visualization tools within the Vish Visualization shell and used it to visualize the life of each individual hydrogen-bond. With this tool hydrogen-bond formation and breaking as well as clustering and chain formation in hydrogen-bonded liquids can be observed directly. Liquid ethylene glycol at room temperature does not show significant clustering or chain building. The hydrogen-bonds break often due to the rotational and vibrational motions of the molecules leading to an H-bond half-life time of approximately 1.5 ps. However, most of the H-bonds are reformed again so that after 50 ps only 40% of these H-bonds are irreversibly broken due to diffusional motion. This hydrogen-bond half-life time due to diffusional motion is 80.3 ps. The work was preceded by a careful check of various OPLS-based force fields used in the literature. It was found that they lead to quite different angular and H-bond distributions.

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We explore solvent dynamics effects in interfacial bond breaking electron transfer in terms of a multimode approach and make an attempt to interpret challenging recent experimental results (the nonmonotonous behavior of the rate constant of electroreduction of S2O82– from mixed water–EG solutions when increasing the EG fraction; see Zagrebin, P.A. et al. J. Phys. Chem. B2010, 114, 311). The exact expansion of the solvent correlation function (calculated using experimental dielectric spectra) in a series predicts the splitting of solvent coordinate in three independent modes characterized by different relaxation times. This makes it possible to construct a 5D free-energy surface along three solvent coordinates and one intramolecular degree of freedom describing first electron transfer at the reduction of a peroxodisulphate anion. Classical molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the solvation of a peroxodisulphate anion (S2O82–) in oxidized and reduced states in pure water and ethylene glycol (EG) as well as mixed H2O–EG solutions. The solvent reorganization energy of the first electron-transfer step at the reduction of S2O82– was calculated for several compositions of the mixed solution. This quantity was found to be significantly asymmetric. (The reorganization energies of reduction and oxidation differ from each other.) The averaged reorganization energy slightly increases with increasing the EG content in solution. This finding clearly indicates that for the reaction under study the static solvent effect no longer competes with solvent dynamics. Brownian dynamics simulations were performed to calculate the electron-transfer rate constants as a function of the solvent composition. The results of the simulations explain the experimental data, at least qualitatively.