Characterization of Surgical Aerosols by high Resolution and Single Particle Mass Spectrometry

摘要

Single particle analysis by online mass spectrometry has been widely used for the investigation of aerosols in many research fields, such as atmospheric science, homeland security or workplace control. The method provides chemical and physical characterization of individual particles with high temporal resolution combined with a high level of specificity. Mobile instruments of this type can be operated directly at sites of interest for in situ characterization of aerosols. Such instruments use an impact-free particle inlet system for direct introduction of particles into the mass spectrometer. After particle detection and sizing a pulsed UV-laser is actively triggered to ionize the detected particles, followed by bipolar time-of-flight mass spectrometry /1/. Miniaturization makes such instrumentation accessible for new application fields such as quality control, and clinical diagnostics. One example is the analysis of surgical aerosol particles generated during disintegration of biological tissue using an electrosurgical scalpel. Mass spectrometric methods were applied to analyse surgical aerosols to better understand tissue dissection processes and to improve online tissue identification /2,3/.