A novel differential mobility analyzer as a VOC detector and multivariate techniques for identification and quantification

A Differential Mobility Analyser (DMA) is a specific configuration of an Ion Mobility Spectrometer (IMS) where ions with different electrical mobilities are separated in space, instead of in time of drift, as in classical drift-time IMS. This work presents results obtained with a parallel plate DMA instrument, with crucial differences in the sheath flow and the detection system when compared to other instruments in the market. These differences improve the resolving powers and sensitivities of the instrument. Additionally, datasets from IMS or DMA instruments are typically processed with univariate techniques when only qualitative detection is of interest. However, good performance in quantitative measurements can be achieved using multivariate data processing. This work presents for the first time, measurements with a stand-alone DMA instrument and the multivariate data processing related to VOCs and environmentally interesting samples.