A Gas-Phase Study of the Preferential Solvation of Mn2+ in Mixed Water/Methanol Clusters

The kinetic shift that exists between two competing unimolecular fragmentation processes has been used to establish whether or not gas-phase Mn2+ exhibits preferential solvation when forming mixed clusters with water and methanol. Supported by molecular orbital calculations, these first results for a metal dication demonstrate that Mn2+ prefers to be solvated by methanol in the primary solvation shell.