Two Tales of Measuring More than Mass with Mass Spectrometers: Differentiating Hydroxyproline Isomers and Understanding Ionic Liquid Degradation

We are broadly interested in using mass spectrometry-based platforms to learn more than just the mass about chemical species. During this talk two examples of this will be presented. In the first, infrared ion spectroscopy will be presented as one path toward direct structural probing of gas-phase ions, with the goal of isomer differentiation. Hydroxyproline isomers will be presented as a case study toward this effect. In the second, our work to gain molecular-level understanding of ionic liquid degradation products will be presented. Specifically, results with respect to cluster and cation dissociation in the gas phase and how they relate to bulk pyrolysis products will be discussed. As this is an ongoing project, recent developments and future work will also be presented.