A novel non-radioactive electron source for ion mobility spectrometry

Abstract

Typical ion mobility spectrometers work by employing a radioactive source to provide electrons with high energy to ionize the analytes in a series of chemical reactions. General security as well as regulatory concerns related to the use of radioactivity resulted in a need for a different ionization source which on the other hand produces ions in a similar manner as a radioactive source because the mechanisms are well known. Here we introduce a novel non-radioactive electron source which is capable of providing high energy electrons in a way that is similar to beta radiating substances yielding correspondingly similar peak spectra.

Investigation of ion–ion-recombination at atmospheric pressure with a pulsed electron gun

“…For investigating the ion-ion-recombination we used a drift tube IMS coupled to a pulsed, non-radioactive electron gun 27 for all measurements. The used drift tube IMS has an inner diameter of 15.2 mm, a 2.5 mm long ionization region and a 70.5 mm long drift region.…”

Pulsed electron beams in ion mobility spectrometry

“…40. The electron pulses can be varied regarding their duration from 1 to 100 μ s, and good signals are already obtained with 10 μ s pulses (Gunzer et al 2010a ).…”

“…Regarding the electron source, prominent examples are electrospray ionization (typically for liquid samples) (Wittmer et al 1994, Chen et al 1996, Wu et al 2000, Harris et al 2008, Yamagaki and Sato 2009, optical sources (high-intensity light sources resp. laser, X-ray) (Matsaev et al 2002, Sielemann et al 2002, Oberh ü ttinger et al 2009 ), corona discharges (Tabrizchi et al 2000, Schmidt et al 2001, Khayamian et al 2003, Han et al 2007, Mulugeta et al 2010, Tabrizchi and Ilbeigi 2010, and electron guns (Gunzer et al 2010a ). These sources were also examined in order to have non-radioactive alternatives because of the technical, organizational and related financial complications that accompany the application of radioactive substances.…”

The Utilization of Chiral Ion Mobility Spectrometry for the Detection of Enantiomeric Mixtures and Thermally Labile Compounds

“…The most common of these is radiation using a 10milli Currie 63 Ni source that emits beta particles with maximum energy of approximately 64KeV [1] and an average energy of 17KeV [7]. Other radioactive sources such as americium ( 241 Am) and tritium ( 3 H) provide ionization at different energy levels with 5.4MeV of alpha particles [6;43] and 18.6KeV of beta particle [43] respectively. Research has also been conducted in developing non-radioactive sources with similar ionization energies to radioactive sources, such as electrical discharge tubes developed by Gunzer et al that emits beta particles with similar ionization energy to a tritium source [43].…”

“…Other radioactive sources such as americium ( 241 Am) and tritium ( 3 H) provide ionization at different energy levels with 5.4MeV of alpha particles [6;43] and 18.6KeV of beta particle [43] respectively. Research has also been conducted in developing non-radioactive sources with similar ionization energies to radioactive sources, such as electrical discharge tubes developed by Gunzer et al that emits beta particles with similar ionization energy to a tritium source [43]. In its most simplistic form, an IMS is comprised of two regions, the ionization or reaction region where samples are introduced and ionized, and the drift tube which is under an applied electric field that separates these ions ( Figure 3).…”