Effect of Carrier Gas Flow Rate on High-Field Asymmetric Waveform Ion Mobility Spectrometry

Carrier gas flow rate is a key parameter that significantly affects the high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry.The effect of carrier gas flow rate on the benzene spectral peak intensity and peak width at half maximum has been investigated on the homemade high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer under the conditions of radio frequency electric field magnitude 30000 V/cm,frequency 500 kHz and dutyfactor 0.36.The experiment results showed that the flow rate at 3.67 L/min provides the maximum peak intensity and optimal sensitivity.The peak width at half maximum broadens and the resolving power decreased with the increase of carrier gas flow rate.The optimal spectrometer performance was obtained at the flow rates between 3 L/min and 3.67 L/h.The results and conclusions are useful for the carrier gas flow rate optimal control of high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry.