Taghioskoui Mazdak, Zaghloul Mona
Trace Matters Scientific LLC, Houston, Texas 77057, USA.
The Institute for MEMS and VLSI Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The George Washington University, 800, 22nd Street, NW, Washington DC 20052, USA.
Analyst. 2016 Apr 7;141(7):2270-7. doi: 10.1039/c5an02305j.
Ambient ionization techniques enable ion production in the native sample environment for mass spectrometry, without a need for sample preparation or separation. These techniques provide superior advantages over conventional ionization methods and are well developed and investigated for various analytical applications. However, employing ambient ionization techniques for in situ extra-terrestrial chemical analysis requires these techniques to be designed and developed according to the ambient conditions of extra-terrestrial environments, which substantially differ from the ambient conditions of Earth. Here, we report a plasma ionization source produced under simulated ambient Mars conditions for mass spectrometry. The plasma ionization source was coupled to a quadrupole mass spectrometer, and quantitative and qualitative analyses of trace amounts of methane, as an analyte of interest in Mars discovery missions, were demonstrated. The miniature plasma source was operational at a net power as low as ∼1.7 W in the pressure range of 4-16 Torr. A detection limit as low as ∼0.15 ppm (v/v) at 16 Torr for methane was demonstrated.
常压电离技术能够在质谱分析的天然样品环境中产生离子，无需样品制备或分离。这些技术比传统电离方法具有显著优势，并且已针对各种分析应用得到了充分发展和研究。然而，将常压电离技术用于原位外星化学分析，需要根据与地球环境条件有很大差异的外星环境条件来设计和开发这些技术。在此，我们报告了一种在模拟火星常压条件下产生的用于质谱分析的等离子体电离源。该等离子体电离源与四极杆质谱仪相连，并展示了对痕量甲烷（作为火星探测任务中感兴趣的分析物）进行定量和定性分析的能力。该微型等离子体源在4 - 16托的压力范围内，以低至约1.7瓦的净功率运行。在16托的压力下，甲烷的检测限低至约0.15 ppm（体积比）。
