Laser-driven decomposition and combustion of 4-amino-1,2,4-triazolium nitrate

A triple quadrupole mass spectrometer with microprobe sampling was used to obtain gas-phase species from CO2 laserdriven decomposition and combustion of ATAN. The experiments were conducted in argon environment at 1.0 atmosphere with varying laser heat fluxes from 10 to 300 W/cm2. The flame structure and burning event were recorded using a digital camcorder to observe the whole process. The results showed that, at 35 W/cm2, no ignition of the sample can be achieved, but melting accompanied by smoking and bubbling was observed. At 300 W/cm2, the sample burned with a luminous flame preceded by a short time (1-2 seconds) of 'smoke' generation, but self-sustained combustion of the sample was not achieved, requiring laser heating assistance until completion of combustion. The consistently detected species were distributed within a mass range of 2-46; no masses higher than 46 were observed in the current study. Identification of these species was performed with MS/MS, but further analysis and additional experiments are required to verify some of the results.