Holographic interferometry as electrochemical emission spectroscopy of a carbon steel in 5–20 ppm TROS C-70 inhibited seawater

In the present investigation, holographic interferometry was utilized for the first time to determine the rate change of the number of the fringe evolutions during the corrosion test of a carbon steel in blank seawater and seawater with different concentrations of a corrosion inhibitor. In other words, the anodic dissolution behaviors (corrosion) of the carbon steel were determined simultaneously by holographic interferometry, as an electromagnetic method, and by the electrochemical impedance (EI) spectroscopy, as an electronic method. So, the abrupt rate change of the number of the fringe evolutions during corrosion tests, EI spectroscopy, of the carbon steel is called electrochemical emission spectroscopy. The corrosion process of the steel samples was carried out in blank seawater and seawater with different concentrations, 5–20 ppm, of TROS C-70 corrosion inhibitor using the EI spectroscopy method, at room temperature. The electrochemical-emission spectra of the carbon steel in different solutions represent a detailed picture of the rate change of the anodic dissolution of the steel throughout the corrosion processes. Furthermore, the optical interferometry data of the carbon steel were compared to the data, which was obtained from the EI. spectroscopy. Consequently, holographic interferometry is found very useful for monitoring the anodic dissolution behaviors of metals, in which the number of the fringe evolutions of the steel samples can be determined in situ.     

用高分辨质谱研究二茂铁类化合物

研究了八种N－二茂铁甲基苯胺衍生物的电子电离质谱（EI－MS），并与快原子轰击质谱（FAB－MS）作了比较，讨论了这些化合物的质谱特征。通过精确质量测量，确认了M^ -2 OH离子，并采用碰撞诱导裂解（CID）探讨了化合物质谱中主要离子间的关系。     

聚丙烯中硫酯类抗氧剂的质谱分析

采用齐格勒-钠塔催化剂使丙烯催化聚合得到聚丙烯。聚丙烯树脂本身具有优良的性能,如机械强度好,易加工成型,质量轻,成本低等,但也存在一些缺陷,如由于聚丙烯结构中存在叔碳原子,在造粒加工、贮存和使用过程中,易受热、光、氧等的作用而降解,导致材料的性能降低。为了抑制和延缓聚丙烯的氧化降解,需要在造粒阶段加入抗氧剂。本文以一种聚丙烯树脂样品为研究对象,采用溶剂抽提法提取有机添加剂,并用柱层析法对添加剂进行了分离;利用EI-MS分析了添加剂的组成,其中通过谱图解析,鉴定出添加剂中含有硫酯类抗氧剂-硫代二丙酸二(十四)酯(DMTP),并用此类常用化合物进行了验证,分析结果对树脂牌号的开发具有指导意义。     

An Explanation on the Electron Ionization Mass Spectra of Crown Ethers by MNDO Computational Method

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On the conformational stability and dimerization of phosphotransferase enzyme I from Escherichia coli

The activity of enzyme I (EI), the first protein in the bacterial PEP:sugar phosphotransferase system, is regulated by a monomer–dimer equilibrium where a Mg²⁺-dependent autophosphorylation by PEP requires the homodimer. Using inactive EI(H189A), in which alanine is substituted for the active-site His189, substrate binding effects can be separated from those of phosphorylation. Whereas 1 mM PEP (with 2 mM Mg²⁺) strongly promotes dimerization of EI(H189A) at pH 7.5 and 20 °C, 5 mM pyruvate (with 2 mM Mg²⁺) has the opposite effect. A correlation between the coupling of N- and C-terminal domain unfolding, measured by differential scanning calorimetry, and the dimerization constant for EI, determined by sedimentation equilibrium, is observed. That is, when the coupling between N- and C-terminal domain unfolding produced by 0.2 or 1.0 mM PEP and 2 mM Mg²⁺ is inhibited by 5 mM pyruvate, the dimerization constant for EI(H189A) decreases from >10⁸ to <5 × 10⁵ or 3 × 10⁷ M⁻¹, respectively. With 2 mM Mg²⁺ at 15–25 °C and pH 7.5, PEP has been found to bind to one site/monomer of EI(H189A) with K_A′10⁶ M⁻¹ (ΔG′=−33.7±0.2 kJ mol⁻¹ and ΔH=+16.3 kJ mol⁻¹ at 20 °C with ΔC_p=−1.4 kJ K⁻¹ mol⁻¹). The binding of PEP to EI(H189A) is synergistic with that of Mg²⁺. Thus, physiological concentrations of PEP and Mg²⁺ increase, whereas pyruvate and Mg²⁺ decrease the amount of dimeric, active, dephospho-enzyme I.     

Matrix-Assisted in-Beam Mass Spectra of Thermally Fragile Molecules

In-beam and matrix-isolation techniques have been used in the mass spectral studies of several categories of biologically significant compounds. These include amino acids, quaternary ammonium salts, vitamins and nucleosides. Molecular ions and/or (M+H)⁺ions are obtained, together with useful fragmentations, all of which are valuable in structural elucidations. Spectra obtained by this version of the in-beam technique are similar but not identical with those obtained by field desorption and secondary ion mass spectrometry. Ammonium and sodium chlorides, ammonium sulfate, p-toluenesulfonic and hydrochloric acids can all be used as a room temperature matrix. The detection limits for vitamin E and 2′-deoxyguanosine have been determined as 1 ngand 5 μg, respectively.     

Comparison of EI and metastable atom bombardment ionization for the identification of polyurethane thermal degradation products

Polyurethanes are widely used in the manufacture of commercial products such as foams and paints. During combustion, these polymers can generate isocyanates, which induce adverse health effects. Polymer pyrolysis (Py) hyphenated with mass spectrometry (MS) allows the investigation of polymer thermal degradation over time/temperature. A diphenylmethanediisocyanate (MDI) polyurethane foam was analyzed with electron ionization (EI) and metastable atom bombardment (MAB) ionization at a pyrolysis temperature of 400 °C. The recently introduced MAB ionization source uses discrete energy stored in metastable atoms of gases to ionize the analytes. This characteristic allows modulation of the ionization energy by simply changing the ionization gas. The extensive fragmentation of molecular ions observed using EI 70 eV is not totally eliminated with EI 10 eV. However, only molecular ions are observed with MAB using N₂ as the ionization gas. Temperature gradients were used to separate the products generated during the thermal degradation of a 1,6-hexamethylenediisocyanate (HDI) polyurethane paint. The analysis of mass spectra was facilitated owing to a selective desorption of pyrolysis products. Furthermore, changing the MAB ionization gas allows elucidation of the structure of the pyrolysis products by controlling the extent of their fragmentation. During these experiments, isocyanic acid, methyleneisocyanate, ethyleneisocyanate, propylisocyanate and butylisocyanate were detected.     

A comparison of electron ionization mass spectra obtained at 70 eV,low electron energies,and with cold EI and their NIST library identification probabilities

Electron ionization (EI) mass spectra of 46 compounds from several different compound classes were measured. Their molecular ion abundances were compared as obtained with 70‐eV EI, with low eV EI (such as 14 eV), and with EI mass spectra of vibrationally cold molecules in supersonic molecular beams (Cold EI). We further compared these mass spectra in their National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library identification probabilities. We found that

1. Low eV EI is not a soft ionization method, and it has little or no influence on the molecular ion relative abundances for large molecules and those with weak or no molecular ions.
2. Low eV EI for compounds with abundant or dominant molecular ions in their 70 eV mass spectra results in the reduction of low mass fragment ions abundances thereby reducing their NIST library identification probabilities thus rarely justifies its use in real‐world applications.
3. Cold EI significantly enhances the relative abundance of the molecular ions particularly for large compounds; yet, it retains the low mass fragment ions; hence, Cold EI mass spectra can be effectively identified by the NIST library.
4. Different standard EI ion sources provide different 70 eV EI mass spectra. Among the Agilent technologies ion sources, the “Extractor” exhibits relatively abundant molecular ions compared with the “Inert” ion source, while the “High efficiency source” (HES) provides mass spectra with depleted molecular ions compared with the “Inert” ion source or NIST library mass spectra.

These conclusions are demonstrated and supported by experimental data in nine figures and two tables.     

GC–MS with photoionization of cold molecules in supersonic molecular beams—Approaching the softest ionization method

A new type of photoionization ion source was developed for the ionization of cold molecules in supersonic molecular beams (named Cold PI). The system was based on a GC–MS with supersonic molecular beams and its fly‐through EI of cold molecules ion source (Cold EI) plus quadrupole mass analyzer. A continuously operated deuterium VUV photoionization lamp was added and placed above and between the supersonic nozzle and skimmer whereas the Cold EI ion source served only as a portion of the ion transfer ion optics. The supersonic nozzle and skimmer were voltage biased and the VUV light crossed the supersonic expansion about 10 mm from the nozzle. We obtained over three orders of magnitude enhancement in the relative abundance of the molecular ion of squalane in Cold PI versus in photoionization of this compound as a thermal compound. Accordingly, we also proved that standard photoionization is not as soft ionization method as previously perceived for large compounds. We found that Cold PI is as soft as and possibly softer than field ionization; thus, it could be the softest known ionization method. The ionization yield was about 200–300 times weaker than with Cold EI yet our limit of detection was about 200 femtogram in SIM mode for cholesterol and pyrene which is reasonable. Practically, all hydrocarbons gave only molecular ions with rather uniform response whereas alcohols gave some molecular ions plus major fragment ions particularly with a loss of water (similarly to field ionization). We tested Cold PI in the GC–MS analysis of diesel fuels and analyzed the time averaged data for group type information. We also found that we can analyze the diesel fuels by fast under 20‐s flow injection analysis in which the generated averaged mass spectrum of molecular ions only could serve for the characterization of fuels.     

Analysis of impurities in pharmaceuticals by LC‐MS with cold electron ionization

Pharmaceuticals require careful and precise determination of their impurities that might harm the user upon consumption. Although today, the most common technique for impurities identification is liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS), it has several downsides due to the nature of the ionization method. Also, the analyses in many cases are targeted thus despite being present, some of the compounds will not be revealed. In this paper, we propose and show a new method for untargeted analysis and identification of impurities in active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The instrument used for these analyses is a novel electron ionization (EI) LC‐MS with supersonic molecular beams (SMB). The EI‐LC‐MS‐SMB was implemented for analyses of several drug samples spiked with an impurity. The instrument provides EI mass spectra with enhanced molecular ions, named Cold EI, which increases the identification probabilities when the compound is identified with the aid of an EI library like National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). We analyzed ibuprofen and its impurities, and both the API and the expected impurity were identified with names and structures by the NIST library. Moreover, other unexpected impurities were found and identified proving the ability of the EI‐LC‐MS‐SMB system for truly untargeted analysis. The results show a broad dynamic range of four orders of magnitude at the same run with a signal‐to‐noise ratio of over 10 000 for the API and almost uniform response.