Introduction to Gas Chromatography/High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Computer-assisted determination of masses in high-resolution mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring

“…The ability to accurately measure microgram per gram concentrations of hafnium in zirconium and zircaloys is of paramount importance to the nuclear industry. Because of their chemical and physical properties, especially their low cross section for thermal neutrons, these materials are well suited to nuclear power applications (1). Unfortunately, hafnium, which is present in percent amounts in zirconium ores, has 640 times higher neutron absorption than zirconium and must therefore be reduced to low microgram per gram concentration levels.…”

“…The computer-assisted determination of exact masses by high-resolution mass spectrometry usually involves scanning the magnet over a wide mass range at some appropriate scan rate. For an exponential scan rate of 10 s/decade of mass at 10000 resolution with a digitization rate of 40000 samples/s, the peak profile of a signal is defined by a certain number of data points (1). In this particular case and assuming a reasonably abundant signal (~100 ions at the collector), the number of data points between the 5% levels is about 17.…”