Molecular ion

An ion formed simply by the removal from (positive ions) or addition to (negative ions) a molecule of one or more electrons. For molecules containing multi-isotope elements, a number of different isotopologue ions will be formed, but the term molecular ion is restricted to the ion formed by the most abundant naturally occurring isotopes of all atoms that make up the molecule. For instance, electron ionization of BF3 gives two isotopologue ions, ¹⁰B¹⁹19F₃^{+./sup>+. of m/z 67 and 11B1919F₃+. of m/z 68 with a near 1 : 4 abundance ratio, the heavier one being the molecular ion since 11B is more abundant than 10B. The mass of the molecular ion should be calculated by the sum of the masses of the most abundant naturally occuring isotopes of all its atoms with a correction for the masses of the electron(s) lost or gained.}