Environmental research
PTR-MS ultra sensitive online monitoring of air pollutants
PTR-MS systems of Ionicon are used intensively in environmental research. Applications in nature need a very low detection limit in combination with the fast response time being the main advantages of our technology.
Different researchers and institutions all over the planet contribute to the better understanding of the world we live in. We help them to achieve their scientific goals.
Atmospheric chemists analyze VOCs in the troposphere with our equipment and are able to quantify substances which are in the air we breathe in concentrations as low as 5 pptv in real-time without the need for sample preparation.
Results of PTR-MS measurements - VOCs in the troposphere
Road traffic contamination is quantifiable even in over 3000 meters altitude.
Tropospheric VOCs at higher altitudes have been measured in in long-term investigations at the top of the Sonnblick, Austria (3100m altitude) and in flight experiments up to 12km elevation above the rain forest in South America. Meteorologists have calculated back-trajectories and thus more information on the measured VOCs could be gathered. Moreover the PTR-MS analysis were validated.
PTR-MS ambient air VOC monitoring on flight campaigns
IONICON has a lot of experience in creating customized solutions for special tasks. Several instruments have already been built-in into planes and other vehicles.
A IONICON PTR-MS has been used at a project called "Aircraft Measurements of Highly Reactive Volatile Organic Compounds Using Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS) During TexAQS II".
It shows that our systems can monitor VOCs online, in a very high time resolution and nevertheless with a very low detection limit.
More information on this flight campaign can be found here.
Download the final report!
PTR-MS on-road VOC monitoring of vehicle exhaust
Our instruments are perfectly well suited for field campaigns as a lot of scientists have successfully proven over the last decade. One of them is Prof. Berk Knighton, Montana State University, who installed an IONICON PTR-MS in a mobile lab to monitor engine exhaust in real-time, "chasing" single vehicles in Mexico City Metropolitan Area's traffic.
It was shown that the results differ according to vehicle condition, fuel quality and driving behavior. Experience this experiment in an illustrative video sequence (15 mb, quicktime, courtesy of Prof. Knighton).
Description of video content:
You will see a picture of the vehicle being monitored in the upper left hand. On the bottom you will see the evolution of two signals: (1) CO2, a combustion tracer to verify that the mobile lab is intercepting the vehicles exhaust plume; and (2) PTR-MS signal at m/z 57, an ion fragment formed from the detection of MTBE, a fuel additive in Mexican fuel. In the upper right hand panel you will see a correlation scatter plot of the m/z 57 signal expressed as ppbv versus the CO2 concentration. The slope represents the emission ratio.
Related article in press:
T.M. Rogers, E.P. Grimsrud, S.C. Herndon, J.T. Jayne, C.E. Kolb, E. Allwine, H. Westberg, B.K. Lamb, M. Zavalad, L.T. Molina, M.J. Molina, W.B. Knighton: On-road measurements of volatile organic compounds in the Mexico City metropolitan area using proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry. International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 252 (2006), 26–37. Link
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