title: Glyoxal measurement with a proton transfer reaction time of flight mass spectrometer (PTR-TOF-MS): characterization and calibration.
abstract: We examine the potential for PTR-TOF-MS systems to quantitatively measure glyoxal in ambient air by characterizing the response of the instrument to a dilute glyoxal sample, calibrating the system as a function of humidity. The concentration of glyoxal in a sample air-stream was measured with an UV absorption spectrometer in parallel to a PTR-TOF-MS. This calibration demonstrated that the PTR-TOF-MS has a relatively low sensitivity to glyoxal particularly at high humidity. Extensive fragmentation of glyoxal to formaldehyde was observed. This behaviour not only desensitizes PTR-MS system to glyoxal; it may also pose a problem to the quantification of formaldehyde. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Mass Spectrometry Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Christof
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stönner
authors.affiliation: Max Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Derstroff
authors.affiliation: Max Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Klüpfel
authors.affiliation: Max Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: John N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Crowley
authors.affiliation: Max Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Williams
keywords: PTR-TOF-MS; formaldehyde; fragmentation; glyoxal; glyoxal calibration