Electron-impact ionization of the simple alcohols

Absolute partial and total cross sections for electron-impact ionization of methanol, ethanol, and 1-propanol are reported for electron energies from threshold to 1000 eV. The product ions are mass analyzed using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer and detected with a position-sensitive detector whose output demonstrates that all product ion species are collected with equal efficiency irrespective of their initial kinetic energies. The total cross section for each target is obtained as the sum of the partial cross sections. The overall uncertainty in most of the absolute cross sections is ±6%–8%. Significant discrepancies are seen between the only prior methanol partial cross section determination and this study but the majority of published total cross section measurements and calculations are in good agreement with this work.