Fragmentation pathways and mechanisms of aromatic compounds in atmospheric pressure studied by GC–DMS and DMS–MS

Abstract

Abstract Differential mobility spectrometry (DMS) is a highly sensitive sensing technology capable of selecting and detecting ions based on the difference between ion mobility at high and low electric field. The combination of a micro-fabricated DMS with gas chromatography (GC) has allowed extensive investigation of the ion chemistry and collisionally induced dissociation (CID) of diaryl molecules on a millisecond timescale at temperatures up to 130 °C. DMS-pre-filtered time-of-flight mass spectrometry (DMS–MS) has been used to verify the chemical composition of the ion species resolved by GC–DMS. This work focuses on the fragmentation of diaryl compounds, including diphenyl methane (DPM) and bibenzyl (BB), using information from the DMS and DMS–MS spectra of a series of aromatic compounds. Density functional theory calculations have been used to investigate the geometry and the energy along the reaction coordinate for the loss of benzene from DPM·H+ and BB·H+ for comparison with GC–DMS and DMS–MS experimental results and with previously reported chemical ionization MS. DPM–H+ is observed to undergo field-induced fragmentation in the DMS to produce C7H7+(Bz+) and unobserved neutral benzene with a low energy barrier. In contrast, BB·H+ fragments to C8H9+ and benzene with a higher energy barrier. Calculated barriers and experimental results are in qualitative agreement. Depletion of the ionized fragments in favor of ion-neutral clusters was also observed at higher concentrations. It is suggested that CID in DMS can further enhance DMS analytical performance.