The mass spectra of some silver salts

Fifteen of twenty‐four silver(I) carboxylates examined give useful electron impact mass spectra. The compounds vaporize at moderate temperatures, apparently mainly as dimer with traces of higher oligomer in only a few cases. The molecular ion for the dimer is generally weak or absent, with the most abundant silver containing ion being [Ag 2 (O 2 CR)] + in most cases. Metastable defocusing and deuterium labeling experiments on silver acetate have established some of the fragmentation pathways. The reported loss of carbon dioxide from perfluorocarboxylates to give intense peaks for organosilver ions was not observed in this study. Attempts to obtain spectra on the silver salts of organic materials other than carboxylic acids were successful in several cases. Silver trifluoromethanesulfonate, although much less volatile, gives a spectrum and fragmentation very much like the carboxylates, whereas silver trifluoromethanethiolate gives a complex spectrum which suggests tetramer as a major gas phase species. Of three compounds examined which have silver to nitrogen bonding only silver(II) phthalocyanine is sufficiently volatile to give a spectrum without decomposition. The field desorption spectra of the four compounds examined all show the ions Ag n X n − 1 for X=acetate ( n =1 − 6), X= p ‐chlorobenzoate ( n =1 − 4), X=methanesulfonate ( n =1 − 7) and X= p ‐toluenesulfonate ( n =1 − 5).