The past century it was generally assumed that there were few excited anions stable to autodetachment. As a result, the ground state electron affinities of the canonical DNA and RNA nucleobases were uncertain. The National Institute of Standards and Technology database of gas phase electron affinities only lists dipole bound electron affinities of cytosine, thymine, uracil, and adenine although we have reported valence state electron affinities of all of canonical forms of the nucleobases from reduction potentials and gas phase data.   These are confirmed these by quantum mechanical calculations. Here we show that this limit supports the values of electron affinities and acidities of the nucleobases.    The electron affinity of the hydrogen atom obtained using the Hylleras variational method is the same as the best experimental value.  The normalized electron affinity of the hydrogen atom is an upper limit for long range electron affinities.    This limit supports our experimental and theoretical values of the nucleobases.

Valence state electron affinities of DNA and RNA nucleobases

245th National Meeting (2013)

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