Investigation of the mass-spectrometric behavior of aminomethyl and aminomethylene derivatives of tetrahydrofuran

The principal pathway in the mass-spectrometric fragmentation of aminomethyl-tetrahydrofurans is cleavage of the α-C-C bond, in which a tetrahydrofuranyl radi cal is eliminated in the form of a neutral fragment, and the charge is retained on the amino fragment. This process is completely absent in methylene derivatives for which one of the characteristic fragmentation pathways is cleavage of the β bond with retention of the charge on the hydrofuran fragment. The established mass-spectrometric principles makes it possible to reliably distinguish amino-methyl- and aminomethylenetetrahydrofurans.