Can ion mobility mass spectrometry and density functional theory help elucidate protonation sites in 'small' molecules?

Traveling wave ion mobility mass spectrometry and ab initio calculations of phosphoric acid clusters

Positive and negative ion electrospray mass spectra obtained from 50 mM phosphoric acid solutions presented a large number of phosphoric acid clusters: [(H3PO4)n + zH](z+) or [(H3PO4)n - zH](z-), with n up to 200 and z up to 4 for positively charged clusters, and n up to 270 and z up to 7 for negatively charged cluster ions. Ion mobility experiments allowed very explicit separation of the different charge states. Because of the increased pressures involved in ion mobility experiments, dissociation to smaller clusters was observed both in the trap and transfer areas. Voltages along the ion path could be optimized so as to minimize this effect, which can be directly associated with the cleavage of hydrogen bonds. Having excluded the ion mobility times that resulted from dissociated ions, each cluster ion appeared at a single drift time. These drift times showed a linear progression with the number of phosphoric atoms for cluster ions of the same charge state. Cross section calculations were carried out with MOBCAL on DFT optimized geometries with different hydrogen locations and with three types of atomic charges. DFT geometry optimizations yielded roughly spherical structures. Our results for nitrogen gas interaction cross sections showed that values were dependent on the atomic charges definition used in the MOBCAL calculation. This pinpointed the necessity to define a clear theoretical framework before any comparative interpretations can be attempted with uncharacterized compounds.