How TMAH Thermochemolysis can improve the detection of trace organic matter on Mars using the MOMA-Pyr-GC-MS experiment aboard the ExoMars-2020
Résumé
T
he Mars Organic M
olecule An
a-
lyzer (MOMA) experiment
a
board
the future Ex
o
Mars
2020
mission will be the continuation of the search for
the organic composition of the Mars surface
.
The main
advantage
of Exomars is
that the sample
will be ex-
tracted as deep a
s 2 meters below
the
m
artian su
r
face
and is expected to be preserved from
the
e
f
fects of ra-
diation and oxida
tion on
organic materials. To an
a
ly
z
e
the wide range of
potential
organic composition (vola-
tile and non volatil
e
compounds) of the m
a
r
tian soil
,
the
MOMA
instrument
utilizes both
UV laser desorp-
tion / ionization (LDI)
and
pyrolysis gas chr
o
matog-
raphy ion trap mass spectrom
e
try (
pyr
-
GC
-
ITMS)
.
In
order to analyse refractory o
r
ganic compounds
,
and
charactize the enantiomeric ratio for
the chiral species,
the sample can
be
submitted
to
a
derivatiz
a
tion
pro-
cess, consisting of the reaction of the sample compo-
nents with sp
e
cific reactants
selected fo
r MOMA
.