Analysis of organic compounds with SNMS

Summary

Plasma-based Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry (SNMS) as a depth-resolving technique was examined for the first time as a method for the quantitative analysis of heterogeneously distributed organic compounds in environmental material. Using argon ion bombardment (340 eV, 2 mA/cm²) SNMS was applied to a variety of organic compounds. Aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons as well as organic compounds with heteroelements yielded mass spectra with predominant atomic signals of carbon and all other elements composing the organic compound. Except for molecularly bound chlorine and nitrogen these signals were found to be governed primarily by atomic ionization probabilities, a prerequisite for elemental quantitation with low matrix dependence. For oxygen as one of these elements matrix dependent variations of the relative detection factor of ±40% were obtained in agreement with average deviations reported for alloy samples. The organic character of the samples is manifested in the appearance of C_mH_n clusters with relative yields declining with increasing number of atoms. The CH signal turned out to be proportional to the hydrogen content regardless of the molecular structure of the compound. This is of analytical importance because low mass separation usually hampers reliable detection of atomic hydrogen with quadrupole mass filters. Other heteroelemental clusters were not detected in significant amounts.