A tuneable pulsed glow discharge time-of-flight mass spectrometer for the simultaneous acquisition of elemental and molecular chemical information

Full text: An instrument offering simultaneous elemental and molecular information has been designed, constructed and analytically evaluated. The system is based on a microsecond pulsed glow discharge (GD) coupled to a time gated mass spectrometric detector. An appropriate synchronization between the GD pulse with the ion extraction pulses in the mass spectrometer was ensured for quasi simultaneous collection of elemental (prepeak), structural (plateau) and molecular information (afterpeak) from every single pulse of the pulsed-plasma. Bromochloromethane was used as model analyte. Compatibility to organic vapours and high analytical sensitivity and linearity were obtained. Coupling of this detection system to a gas chromatograph was evaluated for speciation studies. (author)