Sequence analysis of styrenic copolymers by tandem mass spectrometry.

Styrene and smaller molar amounts of either m-dimethylsilylstyrene (m-DMSS) or p-dimethylsilylstyrene (p-DMSS) were copolymerized under living anionic polymerization conditions, and the compositions, architectures, and sequences of the resulting copolymers were characterized by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and tandem mass spectrometry (MS(2)). MS analysis revealed that linear copolymer chains containing phenyl-Si(CH3)2H pendants were the major product for both DMSS comonomers. In addition, two-armed architectures with phenyl-Si(CH3)2-benzyl branches were detected as minor products.