Thermally induced fragmentation of nanoscale calcite

The ionization of a molecule into a molecular ion inside the mass spectrometer causes instability in the molecule's structure due to the loss of an electron. This eventually leads to the fragmentation or breaking of some bonds in the molecule. The fragmentation occurs predominantly at specific bonds to yield relatively stable fragments.
One type of fragmentation pattern is the cleavage of a single bond in the molecular ion. The cleavage leads to a radical and a cation. The cleavage can...

The molecular ions of linear alkanes prefer to fragment at the carbon-carbon bond away from the end of the chain since the cleavage of an inner bond creates a stable carbocation and a stable radical. Consequently, the mass signals of linear alkanes feature intense peaks in the middle of the mass-to-charge ratio plot with weaker peaks on either end. The fragmentation of each carbon-carbon bond with the release of a methyl group in each splitting leads to prominent peaks in the mass spectra...