Coupling of a High-Resolution Ambient Pressure Drift Tube Ion Mobility Spectrometer to a Commercial Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometer

Maria Allers, Laila Timoumi, Ansgar T. Kirk, Florian Schlottmann, Stefan Zimmermann

Ion mobility spectrometry provides information about molecular structures of ions. Hence, high resolving power allows separation of isomers which is of major interest in several applications. In this work, we couple our high-resolution ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) with a resolving power of Rp = 100 to a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS). Besides, the benefit of an increased resolving power such an IMS-MS also helps analyzing and understanding the ionization processes in IMS. Usually, the coupling between IMS and TOF-MS is realized by synchronizing data acquisition of the IMS and MS resulting in two-dimensional data containing ion mobility and mass spectra. However, due to peak widths of less than 100 μs in our high-resolution IMS, this technique is not practicable due to significant peak broadening during the ion transfer into the MS and an insufficient data acquisition rate of the MS. Thus, a novel but simple interface between the IMS and MS has been designed which minimizes ion losses, allows recording of ion mobility at full IMS resolving power, and enables a shuttered transmission of ions into the MS. The interface is realized by replacing the Faraday plate used in IMS by a Faraday grid that is shielded by two additional aperture grids. For demonstration, positive product ions of benzene, toluene, and m-xylene in air are investigated. The IMS is equipped with a radioactive 3H source. Besides the well-known product ions M+ and M·NO+, a dimer ion is also observed for benzene and toluene, consisting of two molecules and three further hydrogen atoms. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.