Resolving Oligomers from Fully Grown Polymers with IMS-MS

Sarah Trimpin, Manolo Plasencia, Dragan Isailovic, and David E. Clemmer*

Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405

Anal. Chem., 79 (21), 7965 -7974, 2007. 10.1021/ac071575i S0003-2700(07)01575-2 Web Release Date: September 22, 2007 Copyright © 2007 American Chemical Society

Link to Abstract

Ion mobility and mass spectrometry techniques, combined with electrospray ionization, have been used to examine distributions of poly(ethylene glycols) (PEG) with average molecular masses of 6550 and 17900 Da. The analysis provides information about the polymer size distributions as well as smaller oligomers existing over a wide range of charge states and sizes
(i.e., [HO(CH₂CH₂O)_xH + nCs]ⁿ⁺, where x ranges from 21 to 151 and n = 2 to 11 for the 6550 Da sample; and, x ranges from 21 to 362 and n = 2 to 23 for the 17 900 Da sample).