Abstract
Components in four commercial epoxy resins with flexible, weather proofing and uninflammable characters have been analyzed by field desorption mass spectrometry (FD-MS).
Most of peaks in the FD-MS spectra were assigned to be the molecular ion peaks of the polymer components in the resin as shown in Table 6 and their peak intensity patterns should show to correspond the molecular weight distribution of the resins. Only in the mass spectrum of bisphenol A - propylene oxide epichlorohydrin resin, quasimolecular ion peak patterns (M+ 1) + and cluster ion peak patterns (M+23) + with a sodium molecule were found.
The signals due to chlorine, hydroxy group, residual non-reacted molecules and by-product molecules in the resin, which were very difficult to be detected by the conventional analytical methods, could be found easier in these FD-MS spectra. By their peaks, the chemical structure of polymers and by-products could be identified without any difficulty. For example, in saturated bisphenol A - epichlorohydrin resin, (M-17) + fragment ion peaks showed to contain the hydroxy group bonded to terminal cyclohexane ring.
