Investigation of Polyesters by Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry

The structural characterization for series of polyesters has been done by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). Polymer fragments and intact oligomers composed of large numbers of repeat units have been investigated. Transesterification of polyesters in trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and chlorodifluoroacetic acid (CFA) was monitored and reaction products were identified using TOF-SIMS. The shapes and intensities of clusters in transesterification spectra show good agreement with the theoretical isotope pattern. TOF-SIMS spectra were used to obtain information about the progress of the transesterification reaction.