Observation of dihydrated glycine.

The complex of glycine with two water molecules glycine-(H2O)2 has been generated by laser ablation in a supersonic expansion and characterised using rotational spectroscopy. The water molecules bind to the carboxylic group of glycine and to each other through three intermolecular hydrogen bonds, closing an eight-membered ring. In the complex, glycine adopts the conformation found to be the most stable for bare glycine.