On the Crucial Role of Isolated Electronic States in the Thermal Reaction of ReC+ with Dihydrogen.

Presented here is that isolated, long-lived electronic states of ReC+ serve as the root cause for distinctly different reactivities of this diatomic ion in the thermal activation of dihydrogen. Detailed high-level quantum chemical calculations support the experimental findings obtained in the highly diluted gas phase using FT-ICR mass spectrometry. The origin for the existence of these long-lived excited electronic states and the resulting implications for the varying mechanisms of dihydrogen splitting are addressed.