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Resistively heated temperature programmable silicon micromachined gas chromatography with differential mobility spectrometry

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International Journal for Ion Mobility Spectrometry

Abstract

A microfabricated electromechanical system based on radio frequency modulated ion mobility spectrometry (MEMS-RFIMS), also known as differential ion mobility spectrometry (DMS) has been successfully interfaced to a custom-fabricated resistively heated temperature programmable micromachined gas chromatograph. In contrast to a conventional time-of-flight ion mobility spectrometer, the DMS uses the non-linear mobility dependence in strong radio frequency electric fields for ion filtering. Selective and sensitive detection of targeted analytes of interest can be achieved by using different transport gases, radio frequencies, and associated compensation voltages. In addition, the detection of both positive and negative ions, depending on the ionization mechanism favorable to the analytes involved is achieved. When compared to a stand-alone GC with a non spectrometric detector or a stand-alone DMS, GC-DMS as a hyphenated technique offers two competitive advantages; two orthogonal separating methods in a single analytical system and the resolving power of gas chromatography to minimize charge exchange in the ionization chamber of the detector. In this article, a portable, resistively heated temperature programmable silicon machined gas chromatograph with differential mobility detection is introduced. The performance of the instrument is illustrated with examples of difficult industrial applications.

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Acknowledgments

Credits must be given to Dr. Jos Curvers of Bruker Chemical Analysis BV and Dr. HuaMin Cai of Valco VICI Instruments for their assistance in the designing and implementation of the resistively heated temperature programmable silicon micromachined gas chromatographic modules. Dr. Raanan Miller of Draper Laboratory was acknowledged for his invaluable advice on differential mobility detection.

Dave Walter, Dan Martin, Andy Szigety, and Vicki Carter of Dow Analytical Technology Center were acknowledged for their support.

Associate Professor Shellie is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Australian Research Fellowship (project number DP110104923).

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Correspondence to R. A. Shellie.

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Luong, J., Nazarov, E., Gras, R. et al. Resistively heated temperature programmable silicon micromachined gas chromatography with differential mobility spectrometry. Int. J. Ion Mobil. Spec. 15, 179–187 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12127-012-0105-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12127-012-0105-1

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