Comparative studies of electron-impact (EI) and field ionization (FI) mass spectra of pentaerythritol derivatives

The EI Mass spectra of the polyfunctional pentaerythritol derivatives show that the molecular ions M]⁺· exhibit extensive ion fragmentation. No Information about M]⁺·. can be obtained. In Contrast to this, the FI Mass spectra of these compounds show intense M]⁺· and/or M + 1]⁺, and a characteristic ion at m/e 31, which is assumed to be the oxonium ion \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ {\rm CH}_2 = \mathop {\rm O}\limits^ + {\rm H} $\end{document}. Because of surface adsorption and field attraction, FI mass spectrometry presents a serious problem in quantitative analysis of a mixture containing compounds with quite different degrees of polarization.