Eur. Phys. J. D (2012) 66: 27
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2011-20617-x

Regular Article

Dissociative electron attachment to the explosive detection taggant 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane (DMNB)

Institut für Ionenphysik und Angewandte Physik and Center of Molecular Biosciences, Leopold Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

^a e-mail: violaine.vizcaino@uibk.ac.at

Received: 25 October 2011
Received in final form: 29 November 2011
Published online: 31 January 2012

Abstract

A detailed study on dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane (DMNB) in the gas phase is presented. Ion yields as a function of the incident electron energy from about 0 to 14 eV have been measured for the most dominant fragments including anions such as NO₂⁻, [M-NO₂]⁻ or N₂O₄⁻. To help identifying which anion and neutral fragments are formed upon electron attachment we calculated the thermodynamic thresholds using the G4(MP2) method.