Use of doubly charged precursors to validate dissociation mechanisms of singly charged poly(dimethylsiloxane) oligomers

The Kendrick analysis for polymer mass spectrometry

The mass spectrum of a polymer often displays repetitive patterns with peak series spaced by the repeating unit(s) of the polymeric backbones, sometimes complexified with different adducts, chain terminations, or charge states. Exploring the complex mass spectral data or filtering the unwanted signal is tedious whether performed manually or automatically. In contrast, the now 60-year-old Kendrick (mass defect) analysis, when adapted to polymer ions, produces visual two-dimensional maps with intuitive alignments of the repetitive patterns and favourable deconvolution of features overlaid in the one-dimensional mass spectrum. This special feature article reports on an up-to-date and theoretically sound use of Kendrick plots as a data processing tool. The approach requires no prior knowledge of the sample but offers promising dynamic capabilities for visualizing, filtering, and sometimes assigning congested mass spectra. Examples of applications of the approach to polymers are discussed throughout the text, but the same tools can be readily extended to other applications, including the analysis of polymers present as pollutants/contaminants, and to other analytes incorporating a repetitive moiety, for example, oils or lipids. In each of these instances, data processing can benefit from the application of an updated and interactive Kendrick analysis.

Negative Ion Mode Electrospray Tandem Mass Spectrometry of Hydroxy-Terminated Polydimethylsiloxanes Formed upon in situ Methanolysis

Ethoxy-, methoxy- and hydroxy-terminated polydimethylsiloxanes (PDMS) are formed as the result of the methanolysis of diethoxy-ended PDMS during its infusion in electrospray ionization. The negative ion mode permits only hydroxy-ended products to be detected, and isomeric interference is avoided in single stage and tandem mass spectrometry. The routes for the fragmentation of (ethyl, hydroxy)-, (methyl, hydroxy)- and (hydro, hydroxy)-ended PDMS upon collision activated dissociation (CAD) were explored in the negative ion mode using either formate or acetate anion adduction. Symmetrical (hydro, hydroxy)-ended PDMS decomposed to product ions carrying one of the hydroxy terminations through the abstraction of an acidic hydrogen and depolymerization (expulsion of cyclic neutral species) regardless of the adducted anion. Asymmetric (ethyl, hydroxy)-ended (resp. (methyl, hydroxy)-ended) PDMS yielded both ethoxy-ended (resp. methoxy-ended) fragment ions through the abstraction of the only acidic hydrogens and linear product ions carrying both terminations still interacted with the anion. The production of information-rich ethoxy-ended (resp. methoxy-ended) fragment ions was limited by formate but favored when acetate (higher proton affinity) was used in a CAD fingerprint complementary to the positive ion mode.

Improving the Resolution of Kendrick Mass Defect Analysis for Polymer Ions with Fractional Base Units

The concept of a fractional base unit for the Kendrick mass defect (KMD) analysis of polymer ions is introduced for the first time. A fraction of the ethylene oxide (EO) repeat unit (namely EO/8) has been used for the KMD analysis of a poly(ethylene oxide) and found to amplify the variations of KMD between monoisotopic and ¹³C isotopes, producing an isotopically resolved KMD plot at full scale when the KMD plot computed with EO is fuzzy. The expansion of the KMD dimension using a fractional base unit has then been successfully used to unequivocally discriminate all the distributions from a blend of poly(ethylene oxide)s in a high resolution KMD plot calculated with EO/3 as base unit. Extending the concept of fractional base units to other repeat units, the visualization of the co-oligomers from a poly(ethylene oxide-b-propylene oxide-b-ethylene oxide) triblock copolymer has been dramatically improved using a fraction of the propylene oxide repeat unit (namely PO/3) in an oligomer and isotope resolved plot. High resolution KMD plots were eventually calculated from tandem mass spectra of poly(dimethylsiloxane) ions using a fraction of the dimethylsiloxane (DMS) unit (namely DMS/6) with clearer point alignments and a discrimination of all the product ion series, out of reach of the KMD analysis using DMS. Versatile and producing high resolution KMD plots, the introduction of fractional base units is believed to be a major step towards the implementation of the KMD analysis as a routine data mining tool for mass spectrometry in polymer chemistry.