Abstract
RATIONALE:The compositional and structural information of the soot particles is essential for a better understanding of the chemistry and mechanism during the combustion. The aim of the present study was to develop a method to analyze such soot particulate samples with high complexity and poor solubility. METHODS:The solvent-free sample preparation MALDI technique was combined with the ultrahigh resolution FT ICR mass spectrometry for the characterization of solid soot particulates. Moreover, a modified iso-abundance plot (Carbon Number vs. Hydrogen Number vs. Abundance) was introduced to visualize the distributions of various chemical species, and to examine the agreement between the hydrogen- abstraction- carbon- addition (HACA) mechanism and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon growth in the investigated flame system. RESULTS:This solvent-free MALDI method enabled the effective ionization of the solid soot particulates without any dissolving procedure. With the accurate m/z ratios from FT ICR MS, a unique chemical formula was assigned to each of the recorded mass signals. The combustion products were proven to be mainly large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, together with a small amount (
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Journal | Rapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 15 2020 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): OSR-1026-CRG5-C3033
Acknowledgements: The work was supported by the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under Award No. OSR-1026-CRG5-C3033, and Saudi Aramco under the FUELCOM program. This research used resources of the Core Labs of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).