The Mass Spectrometer

C h e m g u i d e – q u e s t i o n s

THE MASS SPECTROMETER

1. The diagram, taken from the Chemguide page, shows the main parts of a mass spectrometer.

a) Explain what is happening in the

ionisation part of the spectrometer

which looks like this in close-up:

b) How are the ions produced in the ionisation chamber accelerated?

(i) What two properties of the ions determine how much they are deflected by the magnetic

field? What effect does each of these properties have on the amount of deflection?

(ii) Of the three different ion streams in the diagram above, why is the red one least

deflected?

(iii) What would you have to do to focus the red stream on the detector?

d) Why is it important that there is a vacuum in the instrument?

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