UTILIZING PRECURSOR ION AND 2ND-GENERATION PRODUCT ION-SCANNING TECHNIQUES IN A 4-SECTOR MASS-SPECTROMETER FOR THE ANALYSIS OF POLYMER ADDITIVES

The analysis of organic polymer additives by means of mass spectrometr y (MS) has been shown to be aided by the utilisation of precursor ion and second-generation product ion (MS3) scanning experiments. These te chniques have been used to determine the fragmentation pathways of the se materials under high-energy conditions. A four-sector mass spectrom eter was employed to generate precursor ion and MS3 spectra which indi cated that the routes of dissociation for the generation of many fragm ent ions, observed as intense peaks in the product ion spectra, were r elatively complex. Fragmentation schemes are proposed to account for t he data observed in the spectre.