Ion mobility spectra for ten alcohols have been studied in an ion mobility spectrometry apparatus equipped with a corona discharge ionization source. Using protonated water cluster ions as the reactant ions and clean air as the drift gas, the alcohols exhibit different product ion characteristic peaks in their ion mobility spectra. The detection limit for these alcohols is at low concentration pmol/L level according to the concentration calibration by exponential dilution method. Based on the measured ion mobilities, several chemical physics parameters of the ion-molecular interaction at atmosphere were obtained, including the ionic collision cross sections, diffusion coefficients, collision rate constants, and the ionic radii under the hard-sphere model approximation.
The dissociative electron attachment process for CHCl3 at different electric field have been studied with nitrogen as drift and carrier gas using corona discharge ionization source ion mobility spectrometry (CD-IMS). The corresponding electron attachment rate constants varied from 1.26×10-8 cm3/(molecules s) to 8.24×10-9 cm3/(molecules s) as the electric field changed from 200 V/cm to 500 V/cm. At a fixed electric field in the drift region, the attachment rate constants are also detected at different sample concentration. The ionmolecule reaction rate constants for the further reaction between Cl^- and CHCl3 are also detected, which indicates that the technique maybe becomes a new method to research the rate constants between ions and neural molecules. And the reaction rate constants between Cl- and CHCl3 are the first time detected using CD-IMS.