ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTS FROM TITAN SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS
GC-MS and Py-GC-MS Analysis
Identifying all simulation experiment products by GC-MS or Py-GC-MS is time consuming and it is often impossible to specify a unique structure for every compound. As the number of carbons, hydrogens and nitrogens in the products increases, the number of structural isomers that can be drawn for that composition increases rapidly. For example, there are 8 isomers with the formula C5H10 and over 100 isomers of formula C10H20. Even if all of these isomers could be separated by the GC, the mass spectra of the isomers are usually so similar that it is not possible to assign an exact structure to each one.
In spite of the described limitations, the techniques of GC-MS and Py-GC-MS provide tremendous structural insight into composition of complex materials. Each sample analyzed produces an array of data that can be considered a signature of the chemistry occurring under a unique set of reaction conditions (starting materials, energy sources and intensities, pressure and temperature). A primary motive for carrying out simulations of Titan atmospheric chemistry here on Earth is to make reference materials that can be characterized by GC-MS or Py-GC-MS to yield data that can be compared with GC-MS or Py-GC-MS data collected by space mission probes such as Huygens.