Atmosphere to Vacuum Ion Transport Guide

Mass spectrometers designed for liquid samples will soon play an important role in exploring celestial bodies and understanding the complexities of extraterrestrial environments. They will enable scientists to analyze the composition of plumes from moons like Enceladus, subsurface oceans on Europa or droplets of sulfuric acid in the Venus’ atmosphere, to gain insights into potential habitability, assess the presence of organic molecules, and understand the underlying chemical processes that shape planetary bodies. In addition, mass spectrometers for liquid samples will be applied, as their earthly counterparts are, to detect impurities in drinking water, thus enabling safe living conditions for the astronauts on spacecrafts, space stations or future human habitats in space.

These instruments typically operate by ionizing liquid molecules in the ambient atmosphere using an electrospray technique, and separating them based on their mass-to-charge ratios within the instrument’s vacuum environment with a mass analyzer of choice (usually linear ion trap). The challenging part of this operation is the transport of the ions from the high pressure region into the vacuum, which has to be achieved with minimal losses. For this purpose, commercial analytical instruments, usually the size of an office desk, employ combinations of different ion transport guides, such as quadrupole rods, ion funnels or rectilinear guides, out of which some are more suitable for spaceflight applications than others.

Within the framework of this project we are developing a small, lightweight and robust combination of ion guides with high  transport efficiency, low complexity, high possibility for miniaturization, and high vibrational resilience, suitable for integration into mass spectrometer for liquid samples on one of the future ESA missions.