Study of the impurities in technical-grade 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triphenylcyclotrisiloxane by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

Polymerization of 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triphenylcyclotrisiloxane is the main method for manufacturing methylphenylsiloxane rubbers, and copolymerization of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane and 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triphenylcyclotrisiloxane is the main method for production of high- and low-molecular weight dimethylmethylphenylsiloxane rubbers. The molecular weight, viscosity, and other properties of the obtained polymers depend on the purity of cyclosiloxanes. The technology of 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triphenylcyclotrisiloxane production by thermocatalytic decomposition of methylphenylsiloxanes in the presence of lithium hydroxide or lithium silanolate, followed by vacuum rectification, makes it possible to obtain a product containing 1,3,5,7-tetramethyl-1,3,5,7-tetraphenylcyclotetrasiloxanes, tetraphenyldimethyldisiloxane as impurities and trace amounts of phenyl-containing siloxanes of cyclic and linear structure. The impurities of polycyclic and polyhedral structures have not been previously described. In this study, the method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry is used to analyze compounds that can be present as impurities in technical-grade 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triphenylcyclotrisiloxane. The use of the previously described regularities of the fragmentation of siloxanes of different structures made it possible to identify a number of siloxanes which are absent in the NIST 11 mass spectra library. It is shown that polycyclic and polyhedral compounds containing methylsilsesquioxane units have a short fragmentation path. They are characterized by ionization with the elimination of the methyl group and benzene in case of two phenyl groups in the molecule. The siloxane skeleton of such cations is rather stable, so they more readily lose another methyl group thus transforming into double-charged cations. The impact of electron ionization on the molecules with siloxane units containing different organic substituents at silicon leads to randomization of those substituents and rearrangement of the siloxane skeleton. Analysis of the results revealed that silanes, siloxanes of linear, cyclic, polycyclic and polyhedral structures are present in technical grade 1,3,5-trimethyl-1,3,5-triphenylcyclotrisiloxane.