An experimental and computational study on the dissociation behavior of hydroxypyridine N-oxides in atmospheric pressure ionization mass spectrometry

BUTLER, MATÍAS; ARROYO MAÑEZ PAU; CABRERA GABRIELA M.

JOURNAL OF MASS SPECTROMETRY

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Año: 2010 p. 536 - 544

1076-5174

A tandem mass spectrometric study of protonated isomeric hydroxypyridine N-oxides was carried out with a hybrid quadrupole/time-of-flight mass spectrometer coupled with different atmospheric pressure ionization sources. The behavior observed in the collision-induced dissociation (CID) mass spectra of the parent cations, was similar irrespective of the source employed.However, there were intrinsic differences in the intensities of the twofragments observed for each isomer. Themajor fragment becauseof eliminationof a hydroxyl radical,dominatedtheCID spectra (in contrastwithweaker water loss) at different energy thresholds. Therefore, it was possible to differentiate both isomers at collision energies above 13 eV by comparing the ratio of intensities of the major fragment relative to the precursor cation. In addition, quantum chemical calculations at the B3LYP/6-31++G(d,p) level of theory were performed for the protonated isomers of hydroxypyridine N-oxide and their radical cation products in order to gain insight into the major routes of dissociation. The results suggest that dissociation from the lowest triplet excited state of the protonated species would provide a reasonable rationalization for the difference in behavior of both isomers.