LAUSR

Soft chemical ionization mass spectrometry techniques, particularly the well-established proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry, PTR-MS, and selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry, SIFT-MS, are widely used for real-time quantification of volatile organic compounds in ambient air and exhaled breath with applications ranging from environmental science to medicine. The most common reagent ions H3O+, NO+, or O2+• can be selected either by quadrupole mass filtering from a discharge ion source, which is relatively inefficient, or by switching the gas/vapor in the ion source, which is relatively slow. The chosen reagent ions are introduced into a flow tube or flow-drift tube reactor where they react with analyte molecules in sample gas. This article describes a new electrostatic reagent ion switching, ERIS, technique by which H3O+, NO+, and O2+• reagent ions, produced simultaneously in three separate gas discharges, can be purified in post-discharge source drift tubes, switched rapidly, and selected for transport into a flow-drift tube reactor. The construction of the device and the ion-molecule chemistry exploited to purify the individual reagent ions are described. The speed and sensitivity of ERIS coupled to a selected ion flow-drift tube mass spectrometry, SIFDT-MS, is demonstrated by the simultaneous quantification of methanol with H3O+, acetone with NO+, and dimethyl sulfide with O2+• reagent ions in single breath exhalations. The present ERIS approach is shown to be preferable to the previously used quadrupole filtering, as it increases analytical sensitivity of the SIFDT-MS instrument while reducing its size and the required number of vacuum pumps.