Measurement of acetates in air using differential ion mobility spectrometer

¹ Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Environmental Engineering, Wybrzeże Wyspiańskiego 27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland
² Military Institute of Chemistry and Radiometry, al. Chruściela 105, 00-910 Warsaw, Poland

^* Corresponding author: author@email.org

Abstract

Volatile organic compounds are one of the most important group of air pollutants. Potential health and environmental problems resulting from their emission prompted the requirement for monitoring these species. It motivates development of new measurement techniques which are fast, cost effective, reliable and field deployable. One of novel approaches is ion mobility spectrometry. It dwells on ion separation in electric field, based on differences in ion mobility. Many variants of this method are developed. In this wok, differential ion mobility spectrometry (DMS) was considered in respect of acetate measurements in air. It was demonstrated that DMS offers linear response to methyl, ethyl, propyl and butyl acetate in concentration range from 0.3 ppm to 7 ppm. Positive ions spectrum has to be utilised for this purpose. We showed that fragments of DMS spectrum which secure linearity are compound-specific. The obtained results are promising from the application point of view.