Aston Labs

Instrumental Setup

A condensed phase sample is heated, while a stream of nitrogen gas pushes the desorbed ions to the mass spectrometer

We have developed a new ionization method for organic & inorganic materials based on simple heating at ambient pressure

Key Findings

• Thermal heating of organic salts, ionic liquids and inorganic complexes at atmospheric pressure can yield significant ion currents.
• Charge separation and ion formation in the gas phase occur outside the mass spectrometer
• Appropriate choices of the matrix and solvent strongly increase ion intensity.
• Atmospheric pressure ion-molecule reactions can now be studied easily.

Personnel

• R. Graham Cooks (professor)
• Hao Chen (post-doctoral student)
• Aliah Dugas (graduate student)
• Chunping Wu (graduate student)
• Michael Goodwin (graduate student)

full list of personnel

Typical Spectra

APTDI mass spectra of organic salts: a.) 1⁺BF₄^- b.) 2⁺ClO₄^- c.) 3⁺Cl^- and d.) 4⁺Br^-

Key Publications

• Hao Chen, Zheng Ouyang, R. Graham Cooks,"Thermal Production and Reactions of Organic Ions at Atmospheric Pressure", Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2006, 45, 3656-3660, doi: 10.1002/anie.200600660