Reactivity of vinyl chloride ionic clusters

The reactivity of vinyl chloride ionic clusters has been investigated by th e Threshold PhotoElectron PhotoIon COincidences technique. In the case of t he dimer, the competition between the three reactive channels (HCl, Cl-. an d CH2Cl elimination) has been studied. The main reactive channel is HCl eli mination which proceeds through a 0.2 eV barrier. This elimination reaction is still observed in the trimer but not in larger clusters. For these clus ters, cooling by evaporation of neutral vinyl chloride monomers seems to be the favored channel that hinders the HCl elimination step. (C) 1998 Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.