High Temperature Condensed Phase Mass Spectrometric Analysis

The EMSP Program ''High Temperature Condensed Phase Mass Spectrometric Analysis'' was funded in Sep. 1997 for 36 months. The purpose of this program is to address the issues associated with understanding properties and reactions when materials such as glasses and ceramics are heated to high temperatures in a variety of processes. The reason this is important to DOE EM is the fact that many processes are either in operation or are planned that entail the processing of waste materials at high temperatures. These systems have been engineered, but in many cases the actual scientific details of what goes on in these processes are poorly understood. This program was funded to build a high temperature mass spectrometric analysis instrument designed specifically to analyze materials heated to high temperatures that allows the study of materials both held at these temperatures and undergoing chemical reactions at these temperatures. This program is now at the 30 month point, and the end product of this program, a mass spectrometer system with multiple ionization and analysis modes for high temperature samples, is now operational. The instrument is built around a high temperature ''Langmuir evaporation source,'' and has the following ionization modes: (a) Static SIMS for cations and anions. (b) Dynamic SIMS for cations and anions. (c) Surface ionization for cations and anions. (d) Electron impact ionization (EI) for cations. These ionization modes are all designed into a single ion source housing interfaced to a high sensitivity quadrupole mass spectrometer