Heats of formation of the propionyl ion and radical and 2,3-pentanedione by threshold photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy

The dissociative photoionization onsets for the formation of the propionyl ion (C(2)H(5)CO(+)) and the acetyl ion (CH(3)CO(+)) were measured from energy selected butanone and 2,3-pentanedione ions using the technique of threshold photoelectron photoion coincidence (TPEPICO) spectroscopy. Ion time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectra recorded as a function of the ion internal energy permitted the construction of breakdown diagrams, which are the fractional abundances of ions as a function of the photon energy. The fitting of these diagrams with the statistical theory of unimolecular decay permitted the extraction of the 0 K dissociation limits of the first and second dissociation channels. This procedure was tested using the known energetics of the higher energy dissociation channel in butanone that produced the acetyl ion and the ethyl radical. By combining the measured dissociative photoionization onsets with the well-established heats of formation of CH(3)(*), CH(3)CO(+), CH(3)CO(*), and butanone, the 298 K heats of formation, Delta(f)H degrees (298K), of the propionyl ion and radical were determined to be 618.6 +/- 1.4 and -31.7 +/- 3.4 kJ/mol, respectively, and Delta(f)H degrees (298K)2,3-pentanedione] was determined to be -343.7 +/- 2.5 kJ/mol. This is the first experimentally determined value for the heat of formation for 2,3-pentanedione. Ab initio calculations at the Weizmann-1 (W1) level of theory predict Delta(f)H degrees (298K) values for the propionyl ion and radical of 617.9 and -33.3 kJ/mol, respectively, in excellent agreement with the measured values.