Optimisation of piezoelectric injection of dopants and drift gas modifiers in transverse ion mobility spectrometry

Abstract

Novel experimental methods are described for controlling the levels of dopant or drift gas modifier with piezoelectric actuation. The piezoelectric jetting of 2-butanol, acetone, 4-heptanone and dichloromethane was first optimised by applying a fractional factorial experimental design to the waveform required to actuate the dopants. The concentration of dopant entering a transverse ion mobility cell was dynamically controlled by a series of air flows at the interface between the actuator and the ion source, as well as the droplet injection frequency, as defined by the optimised waveform parameters. The optimisation methodology indicated that dwell time and dwell voltage were the most important factors in controlling the process. The optimised approach was then used to deliver varying levels of candidate dopants; 20.5 to 196.6 μg m⁻³ for 2-butanol, 35.4 to 164.3 μg m⁻³ for acetone, 17.8 to 58.2 μg m⁻³ for 4-heptanone and 27.6 to 270.2 μg m⁻³ for dichloromethane. The method enables reactant ion chemistry to be switched in the order of 3 to 5 sec, indicating the potential for introducing multiple dopants at varying concentrations into ion mobility spectrometers. The most volatile material dichloromethane was more difficult to control and the reproducibility and stability of the instrument responses to this compound was not as good as the other less volatile ones. The concept of extending this approach to mixtures and dual use formulations, doping and modification was proposed.