Understanding the degradation behavior of nitroplasticizer
(NP)
and the subsequent production of nitro-organics is crucial for both
environmental monitoring and material development. A nontargeted approach
via LC-QTOF-MS was employed to thoroughly study the degradation mechanism
of NP in its late aging stage. Both positive and negative modes of
ESI were performed to increase the compound coverage. To shed light
on the fragmentation behavior of NP degradants (e.g., compounds containing
a high density of NO2 moieties and oxygen sites) in the
positive mode, which is rarely reported, the high-resolution tandem
MS information on precursor ions at m/z 251(+), 254(+), 266(+), and 270(+) and a pair of isomeric ions at m/z 284(+) was investigated to extract
their common diagnostic ions and dissociation channels, including
the neutral loss of 2,2-dinitropropanol, nitro-nitrite rearrangement,
homolytic cleavage of NO2, and simple inductive cleavage.
Additionally, leveraging the sensitivity for nitroaromatics in the
negative polarity, negative ions m/z 182(−) and 233(−) are identified as dinitroaniline
and dinitronaphthol, respectively, which confirm the secondary hydrolysis
pathway of the antioxidant (e.g., N-phenyl-2-naphthylamine)
postulated in our previous work. In addition to earlier findings,
the detection of these eight degradants further supports the evidence
of increased acid concentration and aging temperatures in the late-stage
NP environment, which contribute to intricate degradation behaviors
in different aging environments.