Towards microsolvation of fluorocarbons by CO2: Two isomers of fluoroethylene-(CO2)2 observed using chirped-pulse Fourier-transform microwave spectroscopy

Abstract

Understanding structural changes during microsolvation of a solute by increasing numbers of CO2 molecules provides a path towards improved models of supercritical CO2 solvent properties. Microwave spectroscopic observations of fluoroethylene (FE) microsolvation by CO2 give two FE-(CO2)2 isomers, each with fragments similar to previously studied planar FE-CO2 dimers. In each trimer, a second CO2 is located above the FE plane, in a position not observed for FE-CO2. Current work on FE/CO2 mixtures focuses on deconvoluting interleaved spectra in the microwave scan, aiming to identify FE-(CO2)3 and other clusters, with patterns from at least five additional cluster spectra already identified.