Applications
DART can be applied to a wide range of applications, such as, the fragrance industry, pharmaceutical industry, foods and spices, forensic science and health.
In forensic science, DART has been used for analysis of sexual assault evidence and of synthetic cannabinoids in herbal samples.
In the fragrance industry, the deposition and release of a fragrance on surfaces such as, fabric and hair is often studied. Use of DART compared to traditional methods minimizes sample amount, sample preparation, eliminates extraction steps, decreases limit of detection and analysis time.
In the pharmaceutical industry, the production and destruction of counterfeit drugs is becoming an international problem. Some countries in which this occurs are United Kingdom, China, Russia, Argentina, Nigeria and India. Dart can detect active ingredients in medicine in a tablet form; there is no need for sample preparation such as, crushing or extracting.
DART was used to directly analyze a red pepper pod in three different places: the membrane (white part holding the seeds), the seeds and the flesh of the pepper. The analyte of interest was capsaicin, a natural ingredient of a red pepper pod that is responsible for the burning sensation when eating chilies. The spectrum obtained revealed that the highest concentration of capsaicin is in the membrane.
DART has been used in the study of genus Allium plants, e.g., to identify the lachrymatory compound, syn-propanethial-S-oxide, C2H5CH=S=O, in onion, Allium cepa, a previously unknown lachrymatory compound, syn-butanethial S-oxide, C3H7CH=S=O, in Allium siculum, pyrithione fron Allium stipitatum and syn-propanethial-S-oxide isomer 2-propenesulfenic acid, CH2=CHCH2SOH, which is the very short-lived precursor to allicin from cutting garlic, Allium sativum. Recently, a so-called "cDART" (confined-DART) interface has been developed, in which the plasma generated by the atmospheric pressure glow discharge collides and ionizes the gas-phase molecules in a Tee-shaped flow tube instead of in open air. The confined ion source, which significantly improves ionization efficiency of gaseous molecules, was applied in the real time analysis of volatile organic compounds of lemon and onion. The onion was cut with a steel rod in a sample container continuously swept by nitrogen flow. While many of the onion volatiles found by cDART were identical to those found in the earlier DART study of onions, several previously unknown higher mass ions were also seen, presumably due to the increased sensitivity of cDART.
Read more about this topic: DART Ion Source