Discharge flow tube coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry detection for kinetic measurements of interstellar and atmospheric interests

An apparatus has been developed to study the kinetics of radical reactions of interstellar and atmospheric interests. It consists of a fast flow reactor in which atoms and radicals are initially produced by a microwave discharge. The gas mixture is ionized either using electron ionization or using single photon ionization (at 10.2 eV) or (1+1) resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization and is detected using time-of-flight mass spectrometry. In order to prove the reliability of the apparatus to perform kinetic measurements, the well-known reaction of H atoms with (E)-but-2-ene has been investigated at room temperature and found in very good agreement with previous measurements reported in the literature. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.