Strategies for the mass spectrometric characterisation of complex polymeric systems are generally divided in direct and indirect analyses. Both strategies have been employed in our external ion source 7T FTICR-MS and can answer most of the questions posed by polymer chemists. We have used MALDI-FTICR-MS for the determination of molecular weight distributions of both homo-polymers (derivatised Polyethyleneglycol, Polystyrene and Polymethylmethacrylate) as more complex co-polymers (EO-PO). The high resolution of our FTICR-MS, is used to characterise several polymers consisting of a complex permutation of two monomeric units and five different end-groups.

ASMS

Heeren, R., O'Connor, P. B., Duursma, M. C., van Rooij, G. J., van der Hage, E. R. E., de Koster, C. G., & Boon, J. J. (1996). FTICR-MS characterisation of (co-)polymers. In Proceedings of the 44th ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics, May 12-16, 1996, Portland, Oregon.