F-Search Software – Identifying Peaks and Chemical Composition

At high temperature of 600ºC, some additives decompose, and some do not. Therefore, a number of peaks ranging from small to large peaks are observed. Generally, the quality of a mass spectrum depends on the chromatographic peak intensity. Normally, mass spectra from small peaks suffer from a lot of noise, and often without parent peaks. These spectra are, in general, not used for identification of unknowns.

However, such mass spectra may be of value for unknown identification when utilizing the retention indecies together. This is where F-Search comes in. F-Search library contains mass spectra obtained from such small chromatographic peaks.

• F-Search software is primarily designed to work with data generated from pyrolysis techniques, where a sample is rapidly heated to break down into smaller, more volatile fragments that can be analyzed by mass spectrometry.
• The software automatically identifies all peaks in the pyrogram and compares their mass-to-charge ratios (m/z) to a large database of known compounds to find the best matches.
• By matching peaks to known compounds in the library, F-Search can provide a likely chemical composition of the sample, including potential additives or components within a polymer.
• While primarily used for qualitative identification, F-Search can also be used for some quantitative analysis by comparing peak intensities to known standards.