Lignin is plentiful biopolymer and an important component of biomass. The thermal decomposition of it produces phenols including phenol, hydroxy phenols, anisol and their derivatives, compounds that are important in pyrolysis and gasification. However, the thermal decomposition of lignin and following rearrangement mechanisms of lignin pyrolysis product are not completely understood. In this work, we use lignin pyrolysis components, with sulfonate tags to carry charge, as precursor compounds to investigate the fragmentation upon activation. By having sulfonate tags in the remote position on the aromatic ring, we are able to generate the gaseous precursors by using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Upon collision-induced dissociation, the ions dissociate away in regions remote from the robust sulfonate charge, without influence from the charge on the fragmentation pathways. By using mass spectrometry, we can monitor the fragmentation pathways for low energy CID, and avoid high temperature pyrolysis. The charge remote fragmentation of lignin-model ions upon low energy CID will be discussed and compared with similar experiments done by other techniques, such as gas-phase pyrolysis.

Charge remote analysis of lignin model compounds in gas phase by mass spectroscopy

2019 Spring National Meeting

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