Characterization of Ni(II) complexes of Schiff bases of amino acids and (S)-N-(2-benzoylphenyl)-1-benzylpyrrolidine-2-carboxamide using ion trap and QqTOF electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

This work demonstrates the application of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) using two different mass analyzers, ion trap and hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight (QqTOF) mass analyzer, for the structural characterization of Ni(II) complexes of Schiff bases of (S)-N-(2-benzoylphenyl)-1-benzylpyrrolidine-2-carboxamide with different amino acids. ESI enables the determination of molecular weight on the basis of rather simple positive-ion ESI mass spectra containing only protonated molecules and adducts with sodium or potassium ions. Fragmentation patterns are characterized by tandem mass spectrometric experiments, where both tandem mass analyzers provide complementary information. QqTOF data are used for the determination of elemental composition of individual ions due to mass accuracies always better than 3 ppm with the external calibration, while multistage tandem mass spectra obtained by the ion trap are suitable for studying the fragmentation paths. The novel aspect of our approach is the combination of mass accuracies and relative abundances of all isotopic peaks in isotopic clusters providing more powerful data for the structural characterization of organometallic compounds containing polyisotopic elements. The benefit of relative and absolute mean mass accuracies is demonstrated on the example of studied Ni(II) complexes. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.