THE DIRECT NEGATIVE-ION ESI-MS ANALYSIS O F NEUTRAL FULLERENES

ESI-MS is a soft ionization MS method newly developed,which can detect a sort of compounds existing as ions in solution. According to the ca pability of accepting electron of fullerenes,the mixtures of fullerene s in toluene may be determined directly by ESI-MS without pre-ionizati on, The negarive-ion ESI mass spectra indicate that there have C-60,C- 70,C-76,C-78 C-80,Cs-82,Cs-84,Cs-86,Cs-88,C-90,C-92,C-94 and C-96 in t he mixture of fullerenes;The same results were obtained by pre-ionizat ion using potassium-naphthalide as reducing agent. It indicated that t he ability of accepting electron of fullerenes in the process of ESI-M S is the same as in the reaction process using potassium-naphthalide a s reducing agent.