Direct Molar Mass Determination of Self-Assembled Amphiphilic Block Copolymer Nanoobjects Using Electrospray-Charge Detection Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Charge detection mass spectrometry (CD-MS) combined with electrospray ionization was used to determine, in a direct way and for the first time, the molar mass of self-assembled amphiphilic block copolymer nanoobjects prepared via living radical emulsion polymerization. CD-MS supplies enough data for calculating statistically significant measurements of the mass of particles in the megadalton to gigadalton range and their resulting mass distribution