Ambient Ionization with Plasmas and Charged Droplets

FACUNDO M. FERNANDEZ; JOEL KEELOR; CHRISTINA M. JONES; JOSÉ J. PÉREZ; RACHEL V. BENNET; MATTHEW BERNIER; MARTIN R. L. PAINE; MARÍA EUGENIA MONGE; DAVID A. GAUL; JAEYEON KIM; MARTIN M. MATZUK; LONG Q. TRAN; ROMAN MEZENCEV; JOHN F. MCDONALD; NAEL A. MCCARTY; ARLENE A. STECENKO; WILLIAM T. WALLACE; DANIEL B. GAZDA; HENRIK I. CHRISTENSEN

Castellon de la Plana

Conferencia; XV Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Society of Chromatography and Related Techniques (SECyTA 2015)-VII National Meeting of the Spanish Society of Mass Spectrometry (SEEM 2015); 2015

The introduction of desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI MS) by Cooks and coworkers in 2004 brought, for the first time, widespread attention to the concept of open air surface analysis under ambient conditions [1]. Contemporary with the disclosure of DESI, work carried in parallel by other research teams explored a similar philosophy in chemical analysis. Examples include the patent on the ion source named Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) filed in December 2003 [2], Shiea?s work on open air laser based ion sources [3], and work by the Van Berkel group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on surface sampling probes (SSPs) for direct sampling of thin layer chromatography plates first published in 2002 [4], DESI, DART, and other ambient MS techniques enabled an exciting new perspective on ways to perform both qualitative and quantitative chemical investigations on samples not typically amenable to direct MS analysis [5].As skeptical scientists, we should still ask ourselves what is truly new with respect to ambient MS approaches. Will the excitement about ambient MS withstand the challenge of time? Will we see ambient MS approaches being routinely used in laboratories worldwide 20 years from now? To help answer these questions, in this presentation, I will review the various ambient ionization approaches based on the desorption and ionization principles involved, and highlight their unique advantages and potential weaknesses. Additionally, I will present what I believe to be unique capabilities of ambient ionization being currently exploited, including multimodal biological tissue imaging, rapid metabolome fingerprinting, rapid detection of counterfeit drugs, and three-dimensional robotic surface sampling.