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 .