Study of the Telomerization Reaction of Isoprene with Methanol Catalyzed by N-Heterocyclic Carbene Pd(II) Complexes Using Mass Spectrometry and NMR Spectrometry

A combination of electrospray ionization, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization and gas chromatography–mass-spectrometry (GC–MS) with electron ionization is used for the analysis of products and intermediates of the isoprene telomerization reaction catalyzed by N-heterocyclic carbene Pd(II) complexes in presence of methanol. It is shown that soft ionization mass spectrometry techniques allow the detection of the main catalytically active cationic intermediate of palladium in real time whereas GC–MS is efficient in the structure determination of hydrogenated telomerization products. The data obtained are confirmed by NMR spectrometry.