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Updated: Jul 30, 2025

Using a Cyclic Ion Mobility Spectrometer for Tandem Ion Mobility Experiments
Published on: January 20, 2022
How to Improve the Resolving Power of Compact Electrospray Ionization Ion Mobility Spectrometers
Christian Thoben1, Christian-Robert Raddatz1, Aykut Tataroglu1
1Institute of Electrical Engineering and Measurement Technology, Department of Sensors and Measurement Technology, Leibniz University Hannover, Appelstraße 9A, 30167 Hannover, Germany.
Abstract:
Every drift tube ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) has an optimum drift voltage to reach maximum resolving power. This optimum depends, among other things, on the temporal and spatial width of the injected ion packet and the pressure within the IMS. A reduction of the spatial width of the injected ion packet leads to improved resolving power, higher peak amplitudes when operating the IMS at optimum resolving power, and thus a better signal-to-noise ratio despite the reduced number of injected ions. Hereby, the performance of electrospray ionization (ESI)-IMS can be considerably improved. By setting the ion shutter opening time to just 5 μs and slightly increasing the pressure, a high resolving power RP > 150 can be achieved with a given drift length of just 75 mm. At such high resolving power, even a mixture of the herbicides isoproturon and chlortoluron having similar ion mobility can be well separated despite short drift length.
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