Polymer characterization by electrospray-mass-spectrometry - Shifting the upper mass limit

Kehr S, Luftmann H

Abstract

The described approach allows the determination of homopolymer characteristics from complex electrospray mass spectra of multicharged ions in the range of 5000 to 20000. It makes mass spectrometric characterizations possible where compounds are fragmented under MALDI conditions. The determination is accomplished by simulation of the observed complex mass spectra with an Excel based computer program (PolyCalc). The parameters molecular weight (M), reduced sum of end groups (EG), mean molecular weights and polydispersity (Mn, Mw, PDI) are obtained by recursive iteration.