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Direct Room‐Temperature Conversion of Methane into Protonated Formaldehyde: The Gas‐Phase Chemistry of Mercury among the Zinc Triad Oxide Cations |
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| Abstract: | In thermal reactions of methane with diatomic metal oxides [MO].+ of the zinc triad (M=Zn, Cd, Hg), protonated formaldehyde [CH2OH]+ is generated as the major product only for the [HgO].+/CH4 couple. Mechanistic insight is provided by high‐level quantum‐chemical calculations, and relativistic effects are suggested to be the root cause for the unexpected thermal production of [CH2OH]+ from [HgO].+/CH4. |
| Keywords: | coupled-cluster calculations gas-phase reactions heavy-element chemistry methane activation relativistic effects |