Application of a nonradioactive pulsed electron source for ion mobility spectrometry

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is a well-known method for detecting hazardous compounds in air. Typical applications are the detection of chemical warfare agents, highly toxic industrial compounds, explosives, and drugs of abuse. Detection limits in the low part per billion range, fast response times, and simple instrumentation make this technique more and more popular. Common ion mobility spectrometers work by employing a radioactive source to provide electrons with high energy to ionize analytes in a series of chemical reactions. General security as well as regulatory concerns related to radioactivity result in the need for a different ionization source which on the other hand produces ions in a similar manner as a radioactive source since the ion chemistry is well-known. Here we show the application of a novel nonradioactive source that produces spectra similar to those obtained with radioactive tritium sources. Using this source in a pulsed mode offers the additional advantage of selecting certain analytes by their recombination time and thus significantly increasing the selectivity. The successful isolation of a target signal in the presence of contaminants using a pulsed electron beam or more precisely the difference in recombination times will be demonstrated for the case of dimethyl-methylphosphonate (DMMP) showing the potential of this source to reduce the possibility for false-positive detection of corresponding chemical warfare agents (CWA) by IMS.