O n t h e T r a c k o f M o d e r n P h y s i c s

The flavour (i.e. its mass spectrum) of fresh strawberries, from proton transfer mass spectrometer. Analysis of the spectra was performed only for the simplest chemical species like methanol, ethanol, acethyl-aldehyde, acetone, acetic acid, methyl acetate and ethyl acetate. Methyl and ethyl alcohols there can be treated as "vectors", carrying another smelling substances. Methyl and ethyl octanes have a pleasant flavour, rest of the substances are odorous.

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5OH

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cps

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How to measure 10-27 kg mass?

F.W. Aston was the first who showed that neon, that of red lamp, is a mixture of different atoms. The photo to the left is his first mass spectrometer with the magnetic deflection.

The photo to the right is his article from 1920 on existence of different isotopes in neon.

This was the transfer of proton, but also transfer by proton exists.

How to dress a salat?

Poles would do it with sauer-cream, Italians with oil and vinegar, French and Americans with a special, mayonnaise-like dressing.

What do these dressings have in common? A fat!

A fat to a vegetarian course?

Impossible!Science Museum, London.

Deutsches Museum, München.

PAP, Slupsk

A new type of mass spectro-scopy just showed that “Yes!” You must add fat to the green salad.

While cutting, the leave, still alive, produces some bitter chemical substances, “wound compounds”.

And the oil neutralizes them.

Thanks to prof. Davide Bassi, Trento University

Shemat PTMS, rys. 1, a Europhysic News Nov. 200Jak nie masz to przesle, jak powiesz.

Quadrupole mass spectrometers are the most versatile tools. They use a variable (a few MHz) frequency electrical field to guide only the ions with a determined ratio charge-to mass.

They work like potato-selectors: shaking ions left and right and leaving only those with a right mass.

Time-of-flight mass spectro-meter is simply a long tube.

Lighter ions travel faster than heavy, so they arrive first (assuming the same initial acceleration potential applied).

One of the main problems in mass spectrometry is how to ionize a molecule, without destroying it. Only ionized (i.e. those which lost or gained an electron) atoms and/or molecules and/or radicals can be trapped and transported by (relatively) weak electric and magnetic fields. But ionization by collision with electrons or photoionization usually breaks the parent molecule in many fragments. The new, “soft” ionization, uses proton transfer of a proton from the ionized H3O+ molecule to the searched molecule. This transfer does not destroy the parent molecule and allows the flavour of strawberries to be measured.

For sure, beautifully! especially when we taste them in December!And how do they smell in summer? Differently?

It seems, that, soon, the strawberries flavour will be measured, catalogued, standardized and normalized, and all deviations from the ideal on will be punished in all majesty of law.

LEBENSMITTELFORSCHUNG MITTELS PTR-MSD. Mayr, E. Boscaini, C. Lindinger, W. Lindinger, T. Märk

UZ -3V

-200V

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Uimp +240V

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dT, UT

dK, UK

Proton-transfer-reaction mass spectroscopyFrom: 2nd Int. Conf. PTRMS and Its Applications, Institute für Ionenphysik der Leopold-Franzens-Universität, 2004, editor A. Hansel and T. Märk

This poster is dedicated to the memory of prof. Werner Lindinger

Production of heavy organic molecules, “wound” compounds, after cutting salad and its inhibition by adding oil.