Analytical Instrument Documents

As polymer materials have become more complex and diverse, the details of their chemical composition have become more critical for the end users. This knowledge allows manufacturers and users to understand the effects of incorporating these polymer materials into their products. Additionally, it is critical to also have tools that can quickly compare two-samples to each other like conventional materials versus alternative materials, new products versus old products, and good products versus defective products.

Various applications on the topics of Materials and Chemistry for the AccuTOF GC Series

Among the various methods used for characterizing plastics, pyrolysis (Py) GC/MS and thermal desorption (TD) GC/MS are widely used for both qualitative and quantitative analyses. These are simple techniques that provide detailed information about the samples. In this application note, we report the analysis of additives in plastic by using a thermal desorption system and a JEOL JMS-T100GCV "AccuTOF GCv" GC-TOFMS. Identification of the analytes was accomplished by library search and accurate mass measurement. Additionally, isotope cluster pattern matching was performed using the "Mass Spec Tools™" software to help identify an unknown compound that was present in the sample.

In this work, we introduce the msFineAnalysis software and use it to automatically combine data acquired by GC/EI and GC/soft ionization for the qualitative analysis of compounds produced by the pyrolysis of a vinyl acetate resin.

Electron ionization (EI) is a hard ionization method that is commonly used with gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The mass spectral fragmentation patterns produced by EI are used for library database searches to identify compounds. Conversely, soft ionization methods like field ionization (FI) tend to produce clear molecular ions with minimal fragmentation. When high-resolution MS is used with these ionization techniques, the accurate masses for the fragment ions produced by EI and the molecular ions produced by soft ionization provide an additional dimension of information for the analytes. Combining the exact mass information with the results of conventional library search can enhance the accuracy of identification compared to the use of library search alone.  In this work, we introduce the msFineAnalysis software and use it to automatically combine data acquired by GC/EI and GC/soft ionization for the qualitative analysis of coffee headspace.

In 2018, msFineAnalysis Ver.1 software was released in which data acquired by EI, soft ionization, and accurate mass measurements were automatically integrated to generate a qualitative report for samples measured by these techniques with GC-MS. Recently, msFineAnalysis Ver.2 was introduced as an enhanced version with additional features. In this work, we will describe the changes in Ver.2, which now includes chromatographic deconvolution, and present applications using the new features.

In 2018, we announced the msFineAnalysis software which was designed to automatically integrate two types of data acquired by EI and soft ionization. Recently, we developed msFineAnalysis Version 2, an enhanced version with additional features. msFineAnalysis Version 2 incorporates two new features: Chromatographic Deconvolution and Group Analysis. In this work, we use the group analysis capabilities of the software to evaluate the pyrolysis GC-MS results for a vinyl acetate resin.

Advances in mass spectrometry are enabling analysis of micro samples and unknown components that were not observable before. As the volume of information acquired from mass spectrometry increases, researchers are calling for simple techniques to analyze the numerous components observed, and as a result, there is a rise in demand for comprehensive analytical techniques including multiple classification analysis. In this work, we analyzed 2 samples in a high resolution GC-TOFMS, using EI, the most widely used ionization technique for GC-MS, and compared the data acquired by using a comprehensive analytical technique.

JEOL has developed a unique EI/FI/FD combination ion source for the “AccuTOF GCv 4G”, a high- resolution GC-time-of-flight (TOF) MS system. This unique ion source provides the capabilities of GC/EI, GC/FI and FD measurements without having to break vacuum in order to switch between each ionization mode. Additionally, this combination is particularly powerful in that it provides library searchable fragmentation information by using EI and high mass accuracy molecular ion information by using FI and FD. In this work, we measured an antioxidant additive by using each ionization mode available on the AccuTOF GCv 4G combination ion source (EI/FI/FD).

Recently, JEOL introduced the AccuTOF-GC, an innovative GC/time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF MS) that is capable of both high data acquisition rates and easy exact mass measurements. The exact mass measurements can then be used to generate lists of possible elemental compositions, which is a powerful tool for identifying unknown compounds. Additionally, this information can be combined with the fragmentation information to help confirm the identity an unknown compound. In this work, the AccuTOF-GC system was used to identify an unknown compound in a liquid crystal extract.