Deciphering Isotopic Fine Structures of Silylated Compounds in Gas Chromatography–Vacuum Photoionization Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry of Bio-Oils

Abstract

We introduce vacuum resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) with high-resolution Orbitrap Fourier transform mass spectrometry (FTMS) for analyzing silylated polar compounds. UV laser radiation at 248 nm sensitively and selectively targets aromatic constituents, while high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) enables high-performance mass spectrometric detection. This workflow enhances the detection confidence of polar constituents by identifying unique isotopologue patterns, including at the isotopic fine structure (IFS) level, in analytical standards and complex bio-oils. A direct and derivatized gas chromatography (GC) procedure on a polar standard component mixture allowed us to explore the general ionization and detection characteristics of REMPI FTMS. HRMS enabled the examination of the complex isotopologue profiles, revealing distinct patterns for the CHO_xSi_y-class compounds. Particularly in complex mixtures, this isobaric/isonucleonic complexity exceeded the classical mass resolution capabilities of the employed Orbitrap D30 series and prompted the usage of prolonged transients via an external data acquisition system. This procedure substantially improved mass spectrometric results by recording the unreduced time-domain transient data for up to 2 s. Notably, the ability to distinguish diagnostic isotopic pairs, such as ¹²C/²⁹Si vs ¹³C/²⁸Si with a mass split of ∼3.79 mDa and ¹³C¹²C/²⁸Si²⁹Si vs ¹³C₂/²⁸Si₂, with an approximate mass difference of ∼3.32 mDa, demonstrates a significant and expected performance improvement. Finally, we benchmark the GC HRMS methodology to identify silylated oxygenated and nitrogen-containing constituents in ultracomplex bio-oil samples. The presented approach of utilizing the silicon isotope pattern and unique isotopologue mass splits for increasing attribution confidence can be applied beyond bio-oils toward the general GC analyses of polar oxygenates.