TY - JOUR

T1 - Easy to assemble dielectric barrier discharge plasma ionization source based on printed circuit boards

AU - Hitzemann, Moritz

AU - Schaefer, Christoph

AU - Kirk, Ansgar T.

AU - Nitschke, Alexander

AU - Lippmann, Martin

AU - Zimmermann, Stefan

N1 - Funding Information: Supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the Grant 13N14888 .

PY - 2023/1/25

Y1 - 2023/1/25

N2 - Here, we present a new and an easy to assemble dielectric barrier discharge plasma ionization source based on printed circuit boards with two parallel isolated electrodes for generating a plasma inside an inert fused silica capillary. For demonstration, this plasma source is coupled to an ion mobility spectrometer. With two different sample gas feeds the analytes can either pass through the plasma or bypass the plasma before entering the reaction region of the ion mobility spectrometer, allowing for different ionization pathways, e.g. electron impact ionization, ionization by excited species, e.g. helium metastables, or chemical ionization via reactant ions generated inside or downstream of the plasma. The plasma source, in particular, the electrode geometry and the capillary diameter were designed with the help of electric field simulations. A rectangular electrode with a height of at least twice the outer diameter of the capillary turned out to be ideal, in both the simulation and the experiment. Furthermore, a simple control electronics has been developed, which can be easily applied to other plasma sources. With the plasma source presented here, detection limits in the mid pptv range have been reached.

AB - Here, we present a new and an easy to assemble dielectric barrier discharge plasma ionization source based on printed circuit boards with two parallel isolated electrodes for generating a plasma inside an inert fused silica capillary. For demonstration, this plasma source is coupled to an ion mobility spectrometer. With two different sample gas feeds the analytes can either pass through the plasma or bypass the plasma before entering the reaction region of the ion mobility spectrometer, allowing for different ionization pathways, e.g. electron impact ionization, ionization by excited species, e.g. helium metastables, or chemical ionization via reactant ions generated inside or downstream of the plasma. The plasma source, in particular, the electrode geometry and the capillary diameter were designed with the help of electric field simulations. A rectangular electrode with a height of at least twice the outer diameter of the capillary turned out to be ideal, in both the simulation and the experiment. Furthermore, a simple control electronics has been developed, which can be easily applied to other plasma sources. With the plasma source presented here, detection limits in the mid pptv range have been reached.

KW - API

KW - Atmospheric pressure ionization

KW - DBD

KW - Dielectric-barrier discharge

KW - IMS

KW - Ion mobility spectrometry

KW - Plasma ionization source

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85143539608&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.aca.2022.340649

DO - 10.1016/j.aca.2022.340649

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85143539608

VL - 1239

JO - Analytica chimica acta

JF - Analytica chimica acta

SN - 0003-2670

M1 - 340649

ER -