Direct quantification of organic acids in aerosols by desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

Desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) is a novel analytical technique for direct surface analysis under ambient conditions. In this work, we report the first application of DESI-MS to the analysis of organic acids in atmospheric aerosols. We took oxalic and oleic acids as two typical representatives of the particulate organic acids. Experimental parameters for DESI-MS were optimized to enhance the signal intensity. Calibrations for both acids showed great linearity over a concentration range of 5 orders of magnitude with correlation coefficients R2>0.99. The relative standard deviation (RSD) was less than 10% for oxalic acid and within 15% for oleic acid measurement. The detection limits for oxalic acid and oleic acid are about 1 pg mm−2 with 5–10 s sampling time. Mass concentrations of organic acids in both laboratory-generated biomass burning and ambient aerosols were measured by DESI-MS and the results agree well with the ion chromatography (IC) and GC–MS values. This work demonstrates that DESI-MS is a promising method for rapid quantitative analysis of organic acids in atmospheric aerosols.