Monodisperse aerosol generator
AssigneeGeorgia Tech Research Corporation
InventorsRichard F. Browner, Ross C. Willoughby
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A monodisperse aerosol generator forms a stable jet of liquid at a velocity allowing columnar breakup into droplets of uniform size and spacing. To prevent degradation of the monodisperse aerosol, it is dispersed by entrainment in a high velocity gaseous stream. To provide an interface for direct injection into a mass spectrometer or to interface a liquid chromatograph with a mass spectrometer, the generator is followed by a desolvation chamber operating at about atmospheric pressure and a multistage pressure reducer which evacuates solvent vapor and gaseous medium to form a high momentum, solvent-depleted solute aerosol beam which is input into the mass spectrometer.
Claims1
A method of introducing solute recovered from effluent of a liquid chromatograph into a mass spectrometer, which comprises the steps of:
- (a) generating a monodisperse aerosol of predetermined uniform droplet size from the effluent by delivering the effluent through a conduit at a velocity such that monodisperse droplet formation occurs in the absence of outside disturbances;
- (b) providing a dispersing gas;
- (c) dispersing the droplets with gas just after droplet formation;
- (d) entraining the aerosol in qas and desolvating the aerosol at substantially atmospheric pressure;
- (e) expanding the components of step (d) into a low pressure environment while removing gas therefrom to form a high momentum monodisperse aerosol beam of solute particles;
- and
- (f) directing said beam into a mass spectrometer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.