Structural characterization and sequence distributions of polysiloxanes using pyrolysis MS/MS.

Novel polysiloxanes, with 4-(dialkylamino)pyridine substituents, are characterized by pyrolysis tandem mass spectrometry. These polymers form abundant cyclic oligomeric ions under both desorption electron ionization (DEI) and desorption chemical ionization (DCI) conditions. Product MS/MS spectra of the cyclic ions reveal characteristic fragmentations under low energy collision activated dissociation. Protonated cyclic oligomers higher than the pentamer are mainly due to the proton bound dimers of lower oligomeric units. The cyclic oligomers are shown to have proton affinities greater than 1000 kJ/mole. It is proposed that thermal depolymerization occurs through an intramolecular siloxane bond rearrangement, which is in agreement with a previously proposed "loop mechanism". Markovian statistical calculations are applied to the DCI mass spectral data in order to determine the sequence distribution of siloxane copolymers. Application of this method show that the monomers in the copolymers examined are non-randomly distributed.