Real-time monitoring traces of SF₆ in near-source ambient air by ion mobility spectrometry

ABSTRACT

The leakage of sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆) gas threats the global climate changes and personnel safety. Monitoring the concentration of SF₆ in its application places is an industry regulation. In this study, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) was developed for fast monitoring traces of SF₆ in near-source ambient air. Due to the water is an important part of the natural air and affects most atmospheric measurements, the operating parameters of IMS monitoring SF₆ were optimised for quantitative analysis of SF₆ at different relative humidity (RH). It is discovered two main product ions SF₆⁻ and SOF₄⁻ by IMS at different RH. The calibration curves of SF₆ were investigated by its relationship with the peak intensity of SOF₄^– for real application. The time resolution of the measurement was obtained less than 1 s and the limit of detection (LOD) achieved 0.16–0.68 ppm with a data averaging of 30 times. At last, the simulated application of monitoring SF₆ leakage was tested in the fume hood of our lab. The results showed a great potential application prospect of IMS in monitoring SF₆ in the ambient air of its application places.

KEYWORDS:

• Real-time
• monitoring
• ion mobility spectrometry
• SF₆

Acknowledgments

This paper is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [grant number 2016YFC0201200];DICP [grant number DICP ZZBS201808];National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 21707138].