Differentiation of isomeric haloanilines by tosylation in combination with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Differentiation of the isomeric haloanilines still remains a challenging and necessary analytic task due to their identical retention time in chromatography and similar mass spectra. In this work, p-tosylation of haloanilines by reaction of haloanilines with p-toluenesulfonyl chloride resulted in the corresponding N-tosyl haloanilines. Fragmentation of protonated N-tosyl haloanilines in electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) mainly resulted in tosyl cation, haloaniline radical cation, and halohydroxyaniline radical cation. The MS/MS of the three group isomeric derivatives showed significant difference in abundance distribution of these product ions, respectively. Theoretical calculations showed that the stability of the ion-neutral complex (INC) is a key factor influencing the relative intensity of the product ions. The three group isomeric derivatives were also separated by high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) at conventional conditions. p-Tosylation combined tandem MS (or HPLC) technique were carried out to realize the differentiation of isomeric haloanilines.