A gated atmospheric pressure drift tube ion mobility spectrometer-time-of-flight mass spectrometer

Abstract

Identifying the compounds of an unknown gas mixture by using an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) is a difficult task, because several ion species can be generated in the ionization process. One method to analyze the occurring peaks in an IMS spectrum is coupling an IMS to a mass spectrometer (MS). In our setup we coupled a (3)H drift tube IMS to a Bruker micrOTOF II. Therefore, the detector plate of the IMS is pierced and a transfer capillary is inserted. The ions are transferred via gas flow and electric fields into the MS. The transmission of the ions through the transfer capillary can be shuttered very precisely by increasing the electric potential of the detector generating a repulsive electric field. Thus, it is possible to transfer single ion clouds of generated IMS spectra into the mass spectrometer where a corresponding mass spectrum is generated. In this work we analyze the positive and negative IMS spectra of single analytes as well as gas mixtures and characterize the occurring ion species.

Keywords: BTX; IMS–MS-coupling; Ion mobility spectrometry; Peak identification.