Analysis and identification of diamondoids by different mass spectrometry techniques

Diamondoids have attracted extensive attention from researchers because of their important application value in oil and gas exploration. Since diamondoids have complex molecular structures and a large number of isomers, the identification of certain diamondoids is still controversial. In this paper, a qualitative study of adamantane derivatives, such as 1-ethyl-3-methyladamantane and 1-ethyl-3,5,7-trimethyladamantane, was carried out using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry and two dimensional gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The chromatography peak position of these compounds in different mass spectrograms was confirmed. In addition, with the help of MASS FRONTIER software, the fragmentation mechanism and the characteristic ions formed during electron ionization was interpreted for 1-ethyl-3,5,7-trimethyladamantane in the ion source.