Volatile Organic Compound Fragmentation in the Afterglow of Pulsed Glow Discharge in Ambient Air

Denis Kravtsov, Anna Gubal, Victoria Chuchina, Natalya Ivanenko, Nikolay Solovyev, Alexander Stroganov, Han Jin, Alexander Ganeev

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Glow discharge (GD) source gained an increased level of attention in relation to the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) since past work showed that this soft ionization method allowed direct analysis of VOCs with minimal fragmentation, however, the issue of fragmentation was not previously studied in detail. The aim of the present work was to investigate the effect of discharge conditions on VOC fragmentation in the system consisting of the cell with pulsed glow discharge and a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Ionization of VOCs of different classes (hydrocarbons, alcohols, esters, and carboxylic acids) was investigated. A copper cathode with flat geometry was used. VOCs were ionized in the afterglow of short pulse glow discharge in the air. The use of discharge afterglow significantly reduces or eliminates the effects of ionization mechanisms other than Penning process, in particular, electron ionization. This significantly reduced VOC fragmentation and provided rather low limits of detection. Specific cluster formation was observed for alcohols and esters, which may facilitate their identification.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6864
JournalMolecules
Volume27
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Keywords

  • fragmentation
  • glow discharge
  • mass spectrometry
  • volatile organic compound

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Volatile Organic Compound Fragmentation in the Afterglow of Pulsed Glow Discharge in Ambient Air'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this