Dissociative photoionization of l-menthone: An experimental and theoretical study

The dissociative photoionization mechanism of l-menthone has been investigated with photoionization mass spectrometry using synchrotron radiation. The adiabatic ionization energy (IE) of l-menthone and the appearance energies (AE) of its major fragment ions C₉H₁₅O⁺, C₉H₁₇⁺, C₈H₁₆⁺, C₇H₁₁O⁺, C₆H₁₀O⁺, C₆H₉O⁺, C₅H₈O⁺, C₅H₁₀⁺, C₄H₆O⁺, C₅H₉⁺, C₄H₈⁺, C₄H₇⁺, C₃H₇⁺, C₃H₆⁺, C₂H₂O⁺, and CH₃⁺ are determined with their photoionization efficiency (PIE) spectra in the photon energy region of ∼8−15.5 eV. Breakdown diagrams identifying the major products are presented. Dissociative photoionization channels for formation of these fragment ions are proposed based on comparison of determined experimental appearance energies and energies predicted with the DFT calculations. According to our results, the experimental dissociation energies are in fair agreement with the theoretical values of the possible photodissociation channels of C₁₀H₁₈O.