Laser-induced acoustic desorption (LIAD) coupled witha 3-T Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance massspectrometer (FT-ICR) allows the simultaneous analysisof both the nonpolar and polar components in petroleumdistillates. The LIAD/FT-ICR method was validated byexamining model compounds representative of the various classes of polar and nonpolar hydrocarbons commonly found in petroleum. LIAD successfully desorbs allthe compounds as intact neutral molecules into the FT-ICR. Electron ionization (EI) at low energies (10 eV) andchemical ionization using cyclopentadienyl cobalt radicalcation (CpCo
+) were employed to ionize the desorbedmolecules. The EI experiments lead to extensive fragmentation of many of the hydrocarbon compounds studied.However, the CpCo
+ ion ionizes all the hydrocarboncompounds by producing only pseudomolecular ionswithout other fragmentation, with the exception of onecompound (
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CH
3 loss occurs). Examination of two different petroleum distillate samples revealed hundreds ofcompounds. The most abundant components have aneven molecular weight; i.e., they are likely to contain no(or possibly an even number of) nitrogen atoms.