A new analytical technique is proposed which will provide direct molecular identification of gas mixture components. This method is based on the measurement of electron energy liberated by Penning Ionization in a gas discharge. Penning Ionization is the same process used in Metastable Ionization Detectors (MID). The proposed approach however, rather than simply counting the number of ions or electrons produced by Penning Ionization, will measure the energy of the electrons produced. Since the ionization energy is specific to each molecular species, the resultant data can be used to directly identify each component. No optics or high vacuum is required. The technical simplicity of this method and its capability to directly identify most known species with high sensitivity make it an ideal candidate for analytical in-situ instrumentation.Potential Commercial ApplicationsThe proposed methodology can lead to the development of a detector suitable both as part of a gas chromatography system and as a stand-alone gas analyzer with extremely broad application. Characteristics of the proposed detector will be: small size, technically simple, fast response (a millesecond) high durability (resistence of the detector parts to aggressive gases), high sensitivity (ability to simultaneously resolve several different eluates), and with quantitative information about the analyte densities.
