Sensitivity vs Competing Proton Transfer Reactions: Addressing Key Parameters of Ion Chemistry in Ion Mobility Spectrometry.

ABSTRACT: Ion mobility spectrometers (IMS) are widely used in various gas sensing applications due to their high sensitivity and rapid analysis times. However, in complex gas mixtures, reactions between the protonated target analyte and interfering species can lead to discrimination of analytes with low gas basicity, reducing sensitivity or even making detection impossible. Operating IMS at low pressure and high reduced electric field strengths has been shown to mitigate these competing ion-molecule reactions. Therefore, in this work, we present a kinetic model to evaluate the effect of key operating parameters on the ion suppression caused by competing ion-molecule reactions, guiding the instrumental design of IMS. The results demonstrate that measures to reduce competing ion-molecule reactions, su

SUBMITTER: Schaefer C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12412161 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature