Aqueous molecular clusters isolated as liquid fragments by adiabatic expansion of liquid jets

A new approach to solution chemistry and cluster physics has been developed by combining molecular beam mass-spectrometry with liquid jet expansion method. Many features characteristic of molecular association in aqueous solution were observed in the cluster mass spectra and some of them showed good agreement with reported values of enthalpy changes and entropy changes for molecular association-dissociation equilibria in liquid phase. Although it lacks persuadable theoretical analysis at this stage, several new findings obtained by this technique are introduced to appeal its potentialities of physical analysis of solution systems at molecular levels.