Effects of Different Waveforms on the Performance of Active Capillary Dielectric Barrier Discharge Ionization Mass Spectrometry

Journal Article · Sat Apr 15 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/S13361-016-1535-5· OSTI ID:22777089

Dumlao, Morphy C. ^[1]; Xiao, Dan; Zhang, Daming; Fletcher, John ^[2]

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1. University of New South Wales, School of Chemistry (Australia)
2. University of New South Wales, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications (Australia)

Active capillary dielectric barrier discharge ionization (DBDI) is emerging as a compact, low-cost, and robust method to form intact ions of small molecules for detection in near real time by portable mass spectrometers. Here, we demonstrate that by using a 10 kHz, ~2.5 kV{sub p-p} high-voltage square-wave alternating current plasma, active capillary DBDI can consume less than 1 μW of power. In contrast, the power consumed using a sine and triangle alternating current waveform is more than two orders of magnitude higher than that for the square waveform to obtain a similar voltage for plasma generation. Moreover, the plasma obtained using a square waveform can be significantly more homogenous than that obtained using sine and triangle waveforms. Protonated dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) and deprotonated perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) can be detected at about the same or higher abundances using square-wave DBDI mass spectrometry compared with the use of sine and triangle waveforms. By use of benzylammonium thermometer ions, the extent of internal energy deposition using square, sine, or triangle waveform excited plasmas are essentially the same at the optimum voltages for ion detection. Using an H-bridge circuit driving a transformer optimized to reduce losses, square-wave active capillary DBDI can be continuously powered for ~50 h by common 9 V-battery (PP3). .

• OSTI ID: 22777089
• Journal Information: Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, Journal Name: Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 28; ISSN 1044-0305; ISSN JAMSEF
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ABUNDANCE
ALTERNATING CURRENT
CAPILLARIES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
DIFFUSION BARRIERS
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
ENERGY ABSORPTION
ION DETECTION
IONIZATION
MASS SPECTROMETERS
MASS SPECTROSCOPY
PHOSPHONATES
WAVE FORMS