Reliable Detection of Chemical Warfare Agents Using High Kinetic Energy Ion Mobility Spectrometry.

High Kinetic Energy Ion Mobility Spectrometers (HiKE-IMS) ionize and separate ions at reduced pressures of 10-40 mbar and over a wide range of reduced electric field strengths / of up to 120 Td. Their reduced operating pressure is distinct from that of conventional drift tube ion mobility spectrometers that operate at ambient pressure for trace compound detection. High / can lead to a field-induced fragmentation pattern that provides more specific structural information about the analytes. In addition, operation at high / values adds the field dependence of ion mobility as an additional separation dimension to low-field ion mobility, making interfering compounds less likely to cause a false positive alarm. In this work, we study the chemical warfare agents tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD), cyclosarin (GF) and sulfur mustard (HD) in a HiKE-IMS at variable / in both the reaction and the drift region. The results show that varying / can lead to specific fragmentation patterns at high / values combined with molecular signals at low /. Compared to the operation at a single / value in the drift region, the variation of / in the drift region also provides the analyte-specific field dependence of ion mobility as additional information. The accumulated data establish a unique fingerprint for each analyte that allows for reliable detection of chemical warfare agents even in the presence of interfering compounds with similar low-field ion mobilities, thus reducing false positives.