An ion mobility spectrometer sensor system for subsurface use

Abstract

An ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) probe system for real-time, subsurface soil-gas sampling applications is presented. The system includes an IMS and supporting electronics encased in a 51 mm diameter stainless steel probe housing. The IMS was challenged in the laboratory with 2,6-di-tert-butylpyridine (DtBP) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE) in zero air yielding reduced ion mobility constants (K o ) values of 1.42 cm 2 /Vs (n=3) and 1.79±0.01 cm 2 /Vs (n=3), respectively. A resolving power of 38 and 31 was obtained for DtBP and PCE, respectively. The system was deployed at a PCE-contaminated site to demonstrate its performance under field conditions. PCE was detected in the vapor samples as evidenced by peaks with a K o value of 1.80± 0.01 cm 2 /Vs for two measurements that were taken 6 min apart. The presence of PCE at the contaminated site was confirmed by GC-MS analysis of a gas sample at an EPAcertified laboratory, suggesting that this IMS system can be used to detect PCE under field conditions.

Computational fluid dynamics-Monte Carlo method for calculation of the ion trajectories and applications in ion mobility spectrometry

“…Many instruments used in analytical chemistry, such as ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) [1,2], differential mobility spectrometry (DMS) [3][4][5][6], ion funnel [7,8] and ion trap [9], involve ions moving through gases under the influence of electric field, and are widely used in many fields [10][11][12][13]. IMS is a well-known method to analyze chemical substance using gas-phase mobility in a weak electric field [14][15][16], and is more and more used in the detection of explosives, drugs, chemical warfare agents, biological and medical samples [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”