Characterization of naphthenic acids by electrospray ionization high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization (ESI) high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) was combined with quadrupole, time-of-flight, and tandem mass spectrometry to characterize commercial and naturally occurring naphthenic acids (NA) mixtures. This new method provides quantitatively reliable mass and isomer distributions of NA components in approximately 3 min without extensive sample preparation. ESI-FAIMS-MS seems to be especially useful for characterization of fragile ions that cannot be detected by other methods. A unique part of this technique is separation of structural isomers that proved to be critical in determination of elemental composition and in structure elucidation. Tandem mass spectrometry of NA ions separated by FAIMS provides more information about the structure of NA than other methods in the field of NA analysis.