Distinguishing Isomeric Aromatic Radical Cations by Using Energy-Resolved Ion Trap and Medium Energy Collision-Activated Dissociation Mass Spectrometry

Different collision-activated dissociation (CAD) methods were evaluated for their effectiveness at distinguishing several ionized isomeric aromatic compounds by using a linear quadrupole ion trap/orbitrap mass spectrometer. The compounds were ionized by using atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) with carbon disulfide solvent in the positive ion mode to generate stable molecular ions with limited fragmentation. They were subjected to CAD in the linear quadrupole ion trap (ITCAD) and in an octupole collision cell (medium-energy collision-activated dissociation, MCAD; also known as HCD). Experiments conducted by attempting to vary ion activation times revealed that MCAD and ITCAD occur in the microsecond and millisecond time regimes, respectively. MCAD was found to impart substantially greater internal energies into the molecular ions compared to ITCAD. Accordingly, molecular ions subjected to MCAD favored dissociation via fast c-bond cleavages, while molecular ions subjected to ITCAD tended to favor rearrangement reactions. MCAD used in the energy-resolved mode (ER-MCAD) enabled the distinction of six ionized isomeric compounds from each other based on modified crossing-point energies (collision energies where the molecular ions and selected fragment ions have an equal abundance). This was not true for ER-ITCAD. Overall, MCAD was superior over ITCAD at the differentiation of isomeric ions, and it provided more detailed structural information.