Direct determination of ultra-trace amounts of acetone by corona-discharge ion mobility spectrometry

The capability of corona-discharge ion mobility spectrometry (CD-IMS) in the quantitative determination of acetone has been evaluated. Generally. in IMS the signal intensity of a product ion is not a linear function of the sample concentration. A linear calibration curve was. however. obtained by plotting ln(R-0(+)/R-0(+)-P+) against acetone concentration. where, R-0(+) is the original reactant ion density and P+ is the sum of all the product ion densities. The acetone detection limit was 60 ng m(-3) and its dynamic range was three orders of magnitude.