Articles | Volume 18, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1013-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1013-2025
Research article
 | 
27 Feb 2025
Research article |  | 27 Feb 2025

Product ion distributions using H3O+ proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS): mechanisms, transmission effects, and instrument-to-instrument variability

Michael F. Link, Megan S. Claflin, Christina E. Cecelski, Ayomide A. Akande, Delaney Kilgour, Paul A. Heine, Matthew Coggon, Chelsea E. Stockwell, Andrew Jensen, Jie Yu, Han N. Huynh, Jenna C. Ditto, Carsten Warneke, William Dresser, Keighan Gemmell, Spiro Jorga, Rileigh L. Robertson, Joost de Gouw, Timothy Bertram, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, Nadine Borduas-Dedekind, and Dustin Poppendieck

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Cited articles

Antony Joseph, M. J., McIntosh, D. G., Gibson, J. R., and Taylor, S.: Effects of the source gap on transmission efficiency of a quadrupole mass spectrometer, Rapid Commun. Mass Sp., 32, 677–685, 2018. 
Bielik, N., Correia, D., Rodrigues Crespo, K., Goujon-Ginglinger, C., and Mitova, M. I.: Pitfalls in the Detection of Volatiles Associated with Heated Tobacco and e-Vapor Products When Using PTR-TOF-MS, J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectr., 35, 1261–1271, https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.4c00062, 2024. 
Breitenlechner, M., Fischer, L., Hainer, M., Heinritzi, M., Curtius, J., and Hansel, A.: PTR3: An Instrument for Studying the Lifecycle of Reactive Organic Carbon in the Atmosphere, Anal. Chem., 89, 5824–5831, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.6b05110, 2017. 
Brophy, P. and Farmer, D. K.: Clustering, methodology, and mechanistic insights into acetate chemical ionization using high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 3969–3986, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-3969-2016, 2016. 
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Short summary
Proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) is widely used for the measurement of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) both indoors and outdoors. An analytical challenge for PTR-MS measurements is the formation of unintended measurement interferences, product ion distributions (PIDs), that may appear in the data as VOCs of interest. We developed a method for quantifying PID formation and use interlaboratory comparison data to put quantitative constraints on PID formation.
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