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Title: Developments in triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. I. Distributed processing control system. II. Screening applications for fuel analysis

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:5868443

A data acquisition and control system for a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer has been developed using several microprocessors in a distributed processing system. This system includes four processors, one acting as the system master controlling three slave processors. In such a distributed processing system each processor is assigned a specific task. Critical to this application is the allocation of the task of data acquisition, ion path control, and peak finding to separate slave processors. This modular approach leads to a system where each major section of the instrument has it's own dedicated intelligence. This parallel processing system allows operations that are often implemented in hardware (for speed considerations) to be performed in software. The use of triple quadrupole mass spectrometry, and MS/MS technique, to detect selected species in middle distillate fuels was examined. Collision-activated dissociation (CAD) spectra were obtained for reference compounds from several heteroatom-containing compound classes. The CAD results were used to select screening reactions for each compound class. The effectiveness of these screening reactions was demonstrated by identifying the presence of various species in samples of Jet A aviation fuel, a shale oil derived fuel and No. 2 diesel fuel.

OSTI ID:
5868443
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English