AN APPLICATION OF FAB MASS SPECTROMETRY IN ANALYSIS OF A COMPOSITION OF ATMOSPHERIC WATER

Abstract

ABSTRACT The possibilities of FAB mass spectrometry to analyze the composition of the tropospheric cloud droplets are discussed. As a model for atmospheric water, aqueous solutions of sulfuric acid over a wide range of concentrations were used (10−1 ÷ 10−6 M). The parameters examined were: intensity of positive and negative ions sputtered from the working samples and their dependencies on (H2SO4) or pH measured in aqueous phase. A detection limits of (H2SO4)aq was ∼10−5 M (pH ≤ 5). The correlation observed between the mass spectra and thermodynamic properties of the solutions studied supports the applicability of the proposed approach to quantitative determination of sulfuric acid concentration encountered in atmospheric water.