Airfoil sampling of a pulsed Laval beam with tunable vacuum ultraviolet synchrotron ionization quadrupole mass spectrometry: Application to low-temperature kinetics and product detection
A new pulsed Laval nozzle apparatus with vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) synchrotron photoionization quadrupole mass spectrometry is constructed to study low-temperature radicalneutralchemical reactions of importance for modeling the atmosphere of Titan and the outer planets. A design for the sampling geometry of a pulsed Laval nozzle expansion has beendeveloped that operates successfully for the determination of rate coefficients by time-resolved mass spectrometry. The new concept employs airfoil sampling of the collimated expansion withexcellent sampling throughput. Time-resolved profiles of the high Mach number gas flow obtained by photoionization signals show that perturbation of the collimated expansion by theairfoil is negligible. The reaction of C2H with C2H2 is studied at 70 K as a proof-of-principle result for both low-temperature rate coefficient measurements and product identification basedon the photoionization spectrum of the reaction product versus VUV photon energy. This approach can be used to provide new insights into reaction mechanisms occurring at kinetic ratesclose to the collision-determined limit
