Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry is a powerful tool for the analysis of polymer structures. Our newly developed MALINTO software significantly accelerates the interpretation of MALDI mass spectra by calculating theoretical mass lists from input data (monomers, end groups, adducts) and subsequent comparison to experimental MALDI data. A statistics tool can further be used to obtain (semi)quantitative evaluations. MALINTO is especially designed for complex (co)polymers as well as branched and cyclic polycondensates which could not be analysed by commercially available or published home-made software tools so far.

The concept of MALINTO and examples for its application are discussed in the open access article "MALINTO: A New MALDI Interpretation Tool for Enhanced Peak Assignment and Semiquantitative Studies of Complex Synthetic Polymers" published in the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and available using the following link: https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.2c00311, opens an external URL in a new window.

A step-by-step introduction to the MALINTO software is described in the program manual which can be downloaded below.

Please contact klara.saller(at)jku.at or clemens.schwarzinger(at)jku.at for any questions or comments.