Detection of styrene impurities in phenylacetylene by resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Three commercially available phenylacetylene samples were studied by using resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Analyses of the observed mass peaks and the resulting optical spectra show that all these samples contain styrene impurities. The observed spectral features have been successfully assigned on the basis of comparison with the results from our ab initio calculations and experimental data available in the literature. The present studies demonstrate the feasibility of the REMPI technique coupled with mass analysis to obtain unambiguous spectral information for a sample mixture containing many components.