Finnigan Mat Gmbh

Finnegan Mat Gmbh

Karleugen Habfast

Hans-Jorg Laue

Willi Brand

Background of the invention is the isotope ratio analysis of carbon and nitrogen as components of hydrocarbon compounds. The separation into individual components takes place in a gas chromatograph and oxydation in a downstream combustion oven, into, inter alia CO.sub.2 and N.sub.2. In general CO.sub.2 is present in a much larger quantity than N.sub.2. The measurement values on the mass spectrometer have accordingly different dimensions. In order to approximate the peak values, a dilution with additional helium as a carrier gas takes place in the analysis of CO.sub.2. This has the additional advantage that the helium as a carrier gas, which is present anyway, as a result is present in approximately equal quantities relative to the CO.sub.2 and N.sub.2 in the ion source of the mass spectrometer. The dilution takes place in the region of a so-called open split (18).

Process for the analysis of gaseous components by mass spectrometry

In isotope mass spectrometry, there is the problem that in the case of very great frequency differences, the less frequent masses are swamped by the more frequent masses in the measurement result or that the corresponding measurement result is falsified. A correction device is proposed, which comprises a quadrupole mass filter with a voltage supply device which is controlled by the ion separation system and is designed in such a manner that the supply voltages of the quadrupole mass filter and thus its characteristic with respect to the mass quantity to be allowed through are switched over synchronously with the varying mass deflection setting of the ion separation system.

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Bremen, Germany

Karleugen Habfast