Identification of the neutral products from the unimolecular dissociation of singly and multiply charged C60 fullerene ions

✍ Scribed by Kevin J. McHale; Michael J. Polce; Chrys Wesdemiotis

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 594 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1076-5174
• DOI: 10.1002/jms.1190300107

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The neutral products eliminated upon the collisionally activated dissociation (CAD) of C ions (z = 1–4) are post‐ionized to cations or anions and collected in neutral fragment‐reionization (^+^N~f~R^+,−^) mass spectra. These spectra provide conclusive evidence that the decompositions C → C + C~2n~ (where x >30 and 2n < 30) proceed by cleavage of whole C~2n~ clusters, not consecutive losses of __n__C~2~. As teh charge of the fullerene precursor ion increases, the largest detectable neutral loss decreases, from C~28~ for z = 1 to C~12~ for z = 4. Post‐ionization of C~2n~ to cations preferentially produces odd‐carbon cluster ions (e.g., C~5~^+^, C~7~^+^, C~11~^+^, C^+^~15~) whereas post‐ionization to anions yields abundant even‐carbon cluster ions (C~6~^−^, C~8~^−^).