POLYMER ANALYSIS BY PHOTONS, SPRAYS, AND MASS-SPECTROMETRY

Commercial mass spectrometers have been available for more than 50 years. Mass spectrometry (MS) has been applied widely to organic analysis, and during the last 20 years applications for the characterization of complex biological macromolecules have steadily spiraled upwards. In sharp contrast, today only a handful of polymer laboratories rely on MS. Why? Here we show what modern MS can offer to polymer chemistry and engineering. This review describes MS results on polymers that have been obtained with newer ionization techniques - matrix-assisted laser desorption (MALDI) and electrospray ionization (ESI) and by using time-of-f light and Fourier transform mass spectrometers. Examples illustrating structure and molecular mass determination are presented.