Electron attachment studies to musk ketone and high mass resolution anionic isobaric fragment detection

Gas phase electron attachment studies have been performed for musk ketone by means of a crossed electron-molecular beams experiment in an energy range from 0 to 15 eV with a resolution of similar to 70 meV. Additional measurements, utilizing a two-sector-field instrument, have been used to distinguish between possible isobaric products. Anion efficiency curves for 19 anions have been measured including a long-lived (metastable) non-dissociated parent anion which is formed at energies near 0eV. Many of the dissociative electron attachment products observed at low energy arise from surprisingly complex reactions associated with multiple bond cleavages and structural and electronic rearrangement. The present results are compared with previous aromatic nitrocompounds studied in our laboratory recently. Particularly the close similarity of musk ketone and the explosive trinitrotoluene is of special interest. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.