ABSTRACT
Field desorption-mass spectrometry has been used to characterise wide variety of compound types which are commonly used in synthetic lubricant formulations. The technique’s ability to deal with compounds which vary widely in their polarity and thermal stability characteristics make it a particularly powerful tool in application area. The mechanisms involved in field desorption/ionisation involve very low internal energy transfer and the resultant mass spectra are dominated by molecular ion species. Field desorption/ionisation mass spectrometry provides an elegant approach to thecharacterisation of a wide range of compound types used in lubricant formulations. The technique’s ability to deal with compounds of widely differing polarity and thermal characteristics in a single experiment make it an attractive tool in the analysis of complex mixtures. The instrument will be equipped with a multichannel plate array detector which very effectively overcomes traditional problem of low ion currents generated during field desorption ionisation thus giving access to extra dimension of MS-MS information which this combination will permit.
