| Abstract: | Hydrogen migrations accompany many mass spectrometric fragmentation processes and a detailed study of these migrations, largely by means of deuterium labeling, has shed much light on electron-impact induced bond fissions. More recently, it has been found that groups other than hydrogen, such as alkyl, aryl, hydroxyl, etc., also can migrate after electron bombardment and the present article is concerned with a discussion of such molecular rearrangements among organic compounds. These observations are not only of intrinsic mechanistic interest, but a detailed knowledge of the occurrence of such migration reaction is crucial to the proper interpretation of mass spectra and to the avoidance of misinterpretations in “element mapping”. |
