Identification

Title

Molecular characterization of alkyl nitrates in atmospheric aerosols by ion mobility mass spectrometry

Abstract

We demonstrate the capability of the ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) for molecular characterization of reactive and short-lived alkyl nitrates (ANs) in atmospheric aerosols. We show significantly enhanced sensitivity towards the intact molecules of ANs by ultimately 2 orders of magnitude with the addition of inorganic anions such as chloride and nitrate to the negative electrospray to promote the ion adduct formation. This approach enables the measurement of ANs that have a low tendency to form molecular ions on their own with an improved limit of detection in the range of 0.1 to 4.3 µM. Molecular identities of the ANs are well constrained by the developed correlation between the collision cross section and mass-to-charge ratio, which provides a two-dimensional separation of the -ONO2-containing compounds on the basis of their molecular size and geometry. Structural information of the nitrate molecules is further probed by the identification of characteristic fragments produced from the collision-induced dissociation of parent AN adducts. Application of the IMS-MS technique is exemplified by the identification of hydroxy nitrates in secondary organic aerosols produced from the photochemical oxidation of isoprene.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7f192vz

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

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Temporal reference

Temporal extent

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End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-10-21T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

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Conformity

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Use constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-11T19:24:47.792279

Metadata language

eng; USA