The use of elemental composition Information derived from microwave-induced plasma emission as a complement to mass spectral data for the determination of molecular formulas of materials eluted from a gas chromatograph was explored. This evaluation was conducted using the atomic emission responses obtained from large (GMW 200-400 range) molecules of varying structure that were composed of three to six elements. The emission responses were calibrated by using a set of small molecules of unrelated chemical structure. The results obtained Indicate that, If an accurate mass has been measured, the molecular formula can be determined by using only a subset of the elemental ratios available from the atomic emission. If, however, only a lowresolution determination of the molecular weight has been made, all of the elemental ratios are required for the determination of a molecular formula. Of the examples reported here, all but one molecular formula could be determined unambiguously from the low-resolution molecular weight and the atomic emission data. In that particular case, possible molecular formulas could be limited to three, while an accurate mass determination alone for this molecule would produce 23 molecular formulas.
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