Deconvolution and compensation of mass spectrometric overlap interferences with the miniRUEDI portable mass spectrometer
Matthias S. Brennwald, Yama Tomonaga, Rolf Kipfer
Abstract
The miniRUEDI is a portable mass spectrometer system designed for on-site analysis of gases in the environment during field work and at remote locations. For many gas species (e.g., He, Ar, Kr, N2, O2, CO2) the ion-current peak-heights measured with the mass spectrometer can usually be calibrated in terms of the partial pressures by simple peak-height comparison relative to a gas standard with well known partial pressures. However, depending on the composition of the analysed gases, the ion currents measured at certain m/z ratios may result from overlapping signals of multiple species (for example CH4, O2 and N2 at m/z=15 and 16; or Ne, Ar and H2O at m/z=20).Here, we present a method extension to the existing miniRUEDI peak-height comparison in order to resolve such overlap interferences:• We developed and tested a data processing procedure for accurate deconvolution and compensation of such mass-spectrometric overlap interferences.• The method was incorporated into the miniRUEDI open-source software (ruediPy).• The method substantially improves the analytical accuracy in situations where mass-spectrometric interferences cannot be avoided.