Negative‐ion mass spectra of organophosphorus compounds containing PO AND PS groups

Compounds containing the (XO or S) unit yield negative-ion spectra, which are dominated by peaks arising by α or s cleavage to PX. Molecular ions are generally absent in these spectra, except in cases where the molecule contains an additional electron-capture group (e.g. p-nitrophenyl). Simple cleavage is accompanied by a characteristic rearrangement reaction for certain compounds containing the -C(X)-Y-P(S) unit (XO or S, YO, S, or NH); the rearrangement is most pronounced when YNH. Compounds containing the PS moiety are prone to thermal decomposition; such decompositions may be detected by the presence of peaks corresponding to Sn (n=1-10) in the negative-ion spectra.