The Search for Selenium Hydrogen Bonding

Hydrogen bonding is ubiquitous and plays a fundamental role across multiple disciplines such as chemistry, biology and physics. Since its identification more than a century ago (Latimer and Rodebush, 1920), oxygen and nitrogen have been the most studied hydrogen bonding donors and acceptors, while the exploration of hydrogen bonding with other group VI elements, such as sulfur and selenium, is lacking and often overlooked. Here, we request 4 days on SANDALS to study the structure of the simplest selenol, methaneselenol, to unambiguously determine the existence of selenium hydrogen bonding in the liquid state (never been reported in the liquid), while providing a complete picture of the system in comparison with the results from previous allocated beamtime (RB2220561) on the solution structure of methanethiol (MeSH) and MeSH/MeOH mixtures.