Analyzing the solid soot particulates formed in a fuel-rich flame by solvent-free MALDI FT ICR mass spectrometry.

Wen Zhang, Can Shao, Mani Sarathy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

RATIONALE:The compositional and structural information of the soot particles is essential for a better understanding of the chemistry and mechanism during the combustion. The aim of the present study was to develop a method to analyze such soot particulate samples with high complexity and poor solubility. METHODS:The solvent-free sample preparation MALDI technique was combined with the ultrahigh resolution FT ICR mass spectrometry for the characterization of solid soot particulates. Moreover, a modified iso-abundance plot (Carbon Number vs. Hydrogen Number vs. Abundance) was introduced to visualize the distributions of various chemical species, and to examine the agreement between the hydrogen- abstraction- carbon- addition (HACA) mechanism and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon growth in the investigated flame system. RESULTS:This solvent-free MALDI method enabled the effective ionization of the solid soot particulates without any dissolving procedure. With the accurate m/z ratios from FT ICR MS, a unique chemical formula was assigned to each of the recorded mass signals. The combustion products were proven to be mainly large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, together with a small amount (
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalRapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM
Volume34
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 15 2020

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