Mass Spectrometer

• Vaparation - the smaple must be a gaseous.
• Ionisation - high energy electrons bombared the gaseous sample to form positive ions.
• Acceleration -elecric field accelerates the postive ions to high speed.
• Defelction- magnetic field deflects the ions according to mass/charge ratio.
• Detection - ions with correct mass/charge ratio pass through a slit - detected by instrument (like ekectrometer). The signal amplified and recored.

Process - under high vacuum - prevent collision with air molecules.

•  to find the average mass of an atom of an element.
• identify unknown compounds.
• identify trace compands in forensic science.
• analysing molecules in space.