Nitrile versus isonitrile adsorption at interstellar grains surfaces: I - Hydroxylated surfaces

TL;DR

This study combines experimental and theoretical methods to compare how nitrile and isonitrile molecules adsorb onto interstellar grain surfaces, revealing that adsorption strength depends on hydrogen bonding capabilities rather than molecular stability.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the adsorption behaviors of nitrile and isonitrile isomers on interstellar grain analogs using combined temperature programmed desorption and density functional theory analyses.

Findings

CH3CN interacts more strongly with surfaces than CH3NC.

Isonitrile HNC can adsorb more strongly than nitrile HCN depending on surface hydrogen bonding.

Adsorption strength is governed by hydrogen bonding potential, not intrinsic molecular stability.

Abstract

Almost 20% of the ~ 200 different species detected in the interstellar and circumstellar media present a carbon atom linked to nitrogen by a triple bond. Among these 37 molecules, 30 are nitrile R-CN compounds, the remaining seven belonging to the isonitrile R-NC family. How these species behave in presence of the grain surfaces is still an open question. In this contribution we investigate whether the difference between nitrile and isonitrile functional groups may induce differences in the adsorption energies of the related isomers at the surfaces of interstellar grains of different nature and morphologies. The question was addressed by means of a concerted experimental and theoretical study of the adsorption energies of CH3CN and CH3NC on the surface water ice and silica. The experimental determination of the molecule - surface interaction energies was carried out using temperature programmed desorption (TPD) under an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) between 70 and 160 K. Theoretically, the question was addressed using first principle periodic density functional theory (DFT) to represent the organized solid support. The most stable isomer (CH3CN) interacts more efficiently with the solid support than the higher energy isomer (CH3NC) for water ice and silica. Comparing with the HCN and HNC pair of isomers, the simulations show an opposite behaviour, in which isonitrile HNC are more strongly adsorbed than nitrile HCN provided that hydrogen bonds are compatible with the nature of the model surface. The present study confirms that the strength of the molecule surface interaction between isomers is not related to their intrinsic stability but instead to their respective ability to generate different types of hydrogen bonds.