Californium-252 plasma desorption mass spectrometry of chlorophylls and chlorophyll aggregates

Abstract

[^252]Cf-plasma desorption mass spectrometry is shown to be an excellent method for the analysis of chlorophylls in aggregated states. Investigation provide experimental evidence for the view that chlorophylls can be aggregated in quite different ways due to the unique coordinative properties of the chlorophyll molecule. Such solid state interactions of the chlorophylls are characterized by mass spectra which show some type of fast redox reaction among chlorophylls, resulting in positive-negative ion pair production. The spectral and temporal properties of the ionizing fission fragment also mediate the formation of metastable chlorophyll states. These metastable states decay to a like pattern for all the chlorophylls studied. This ionization and detection method can be viewed as a probe into the excitation and energy transfer processes that can occur for chlorophyll molecules.