Reactions of carbonyl compounds and group 1b metals in a plasma in the wake of a spark

The reaction of the model system of C₃H₆ and Cu to produce cationized species C_n,H_m,Cu⁺ in the spark source mass spectrometer proceeds through neutral organic species and Cu⁺. On this basis reactions of Cu⁺, Ag⁺ and Au⁺ with neutral methyl, ethyl and propyl ethanoate, butanone, butanal, 2,4-pentanedione, ethanoic acid and ethanoic anhydride are compared with reactions of similar compounds with laser-generated Cu⁺ in an ion cyclotron resonance spectrometer. In the wake of the spark more fragmentation of the cationized organic species is observed. The simple cationized molecule is not observed if the metal ion has low-lying excited states.