Organic neutralization agents for neutralization-reionization mass spectrometry

Porter has shown that excited neutrals of specified internal energies can be prepared by neutralization of an ion beam with metal vapors of low ionization potential (IP). For specific problems in neutralization-reionization mass spectrometry, a metal with the desired IP value may not be available, or it may present experimental problems such as a high vaporization temperature, instrument contamination, or detector instability. The use of organic neutralization agents such as tetra-p-anisylethylene (IP = 6.0 eV) can minimize these problems (although cross sections for neutralization with these are a factor of 5 lower than those with metals), and can provide a much wider range of IP values. Their utility is demonstrated in the neutralization of C4H4 (+•) and CH8 (+•) ions to produce C4H4 and C4H8 of selected internal energies. However, for CH4 (+•) neutralization, the CH4 neutrals formed have a much lower internal energy than predicted, indicating that electron transfer from the neutralization agent predominantly produces its ions in excited states.