A low-power, atmospheric pressure, pulsed plasma source for molecular emission spectrometry.

A low-power, plasma source-based, portable molecular emission detector is described in this paper. The detector employs a pulsed-plasma source operated at atmospheric pressure for molecular fragmentation and excitation. The plasma was generated with a home-built high-voltage pulsed power supply. The average operational power of the detector was less than 0.2 W. The effects of operational parameters such as plasma gas, voltage, and plasma gas flow rate were investigated. Molecular emission spectra of a variety of organic compounds were studied. The features of the emission spectra obtained with the pulsed plasma source were significantly different from those obtained with direct current (dc) discharge at a power higher than 10 W. The spectra obtained in this work showed strong CH emission at 431.2 nm; however, the typical CN emission observed with a conventional dc plasma source at 383-388 nm was very weak in most cases. The strong CN emission was only obtained for compounds containing nitrogen, such as aniline. Dimethyl sulfoxide can be detected at a limit of 200 ppb using helium plasma by observing the emission band of the CH radical. The detector was very stable and did not experience electrode fouling even with the introduction of organic vapors. Such a detector is very promising for organic vapor detection.