Development of a New Atmospheric Pressure Plasmaspray Ionization for Ambient Mass Spectrometry

AbstractA new atmospheric pressure ionization method ‐ plasmaspray ionization, termed as PSI, was developed to be an alternative ambient ion source for mass spectrometry. It comprises a plasma jet device and a sample spray part. While the non‐thermal plasma jet strikes the surface of stainless steel tube out of the spray capillary, the sprayed sam ple will be ionized with the assistant of auxiliary gas. Although PSI is a little bit more complex than ESI in instrument, it shows both better linearity and higher sensitivity for organic compounds. For protein samples, it presents wider distributions of multiply charged ions and higher mass resolu tion without sacrificing any sensitivity. For the mechanism of PSI, the charge build‐up process on the tip of capillary should play a key role for the ion formation, and the stimulated pulsed voltage on the flow tube will promote the ion aggregation speed until the charge density is high enough. P SI source contains the features of plasma ionization and electrospray ionization, and can be considered as a novel combo bridging these techniques. These results reflect that this method of PSI can be applied and further developed as a versatile new ion source for a wild range of organic and biologi cal samples.

Source: Journal of Mass Spectrometry - July 24, 2020 Category: Chemistry Authors: Zhen Peng, Ji ‐Xing Liu, Hui Zhu, Teng Guo, Li Xu, Jun‐Guo Dong, Ping Cheng, Zhen Zhou Tags: SPECIAL ISSUE ‐ RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Type: research