The use of laser-induced breakdown spectrometry for spatial distribution analysis of platinum, rhodium, and palladium in car catalytic converters is discussed. Fresh converters were extracted from the car exhaust system, cut in pieces of an appropriate size, and analyzed for mapping purposes. Spectral detection, pulse energy, and beam focal conditions were optimized according to the ablation behavior of the material. Difficulties in distribution analysis caused by the complex elemental composition of the sample were overcome by an extensive spectral analysis using appropriate internal standards. Data on the spatial distribution of the active metals in both the axial and radial directions of the catalytic structures are presented.
carried out, demonstrating a good agreement between both techniques, although a better resolution at the interface is obtained with GD owing to the diÂerences in the shape of the Paper 6/07622J
Various factors influencing the performance of a Hadamard transform time-of-flight mass spectrometer (HT-TOFMS) have been investigated. Using a nitrogen corona discharge to produce an ion stream of N2+, N3+, and N4+, it is found for spectra containing only N4+ that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) closely approaches the value calculated from the ion background by assuming that the ion background follows a Poisson distribution. In contrast, for a more intense beam containing N2+, N3+, and N4+, the SNR is less than its theoretical value because of the appearance of discrete spikes in the mass spectrum caused by deviations in the actual modulation sequence from the ideal one. These spikes can be reduced, however, by decreasing the modulation voltage. Under these optimized conditions, the pseudo-random sequence length is varied to understand how it alters SNR, mass resolution, and scan speed. When the length of the pseudo-random sequence is doubled, the SNR increases by the square root of 2 while the time necessary to record a mass spectrum also doubles. Mass resolution can be varied between 500 and 1200 at m/z = 609 as the sequence length, modulation speed (10 MHz, 25 MHz), and acquisition rate (up to 50 MHz) are changed. Scan speeds of 6000 passes per s can be obtained using a sequence containing 4095 elements modulated at 25 MHz. The capability to tailor the HT-TOFMS to increase the scan speed and resolution with a constant 50% duty cycle makes the technique extremely appealing as a mass analyzer for measuring rapid changes in the composition of an ion stream.
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