Can Electrospray Mass Spectrometry Quantitatively Probe Speciation? Hydrolysis of Uranyl Nitrate Studied by Gas-Phase Methods

Abstract

Electrospray ionization of uranyl nitrate dissolved in water leads to the contact-ion pairs [UO2(OH)]+ and [UO2(NO3)]+ solvated by up to four water molecules. The dependences of the ion intensities from the concentrations lead to a quantitative correlation between the gas-phase and solution-phase data.

Keywords

• collision-induced dissociation
• electrospray ionization
• ion association
• mass spectrometry