This proposal is for the design, prototype construction and testing of membrane interfaces which can be used with mass spectrometers for continuous water monitoring. This idea is based on the selectivity of semi-permeable membranes. The membrane interface is a relatively simple and inexpensive separation techniques. The continuous water monitoring system will be composed of a quadruple mass spectrometer and semi-permeable membrane interface. This instrument will enable us to analyze water directly without any sample preparation. The chemical impurities in the water will permeate through the semipermeable membrane and be ionized by an appropriate ionization technique before being analyzed by the quadruple mass spectrometer. The detection limit of this instrument is expected to be as low as 100 parts per billion with a response time of less than one minute. We envisage that this system will be applicable not only to the water monitoring application, but also to measurement problems that require low level chemical analysis of liquid samples in real time, such as fermentation processes.
