Research Center for Analytical Instrumentation, Institute of Cyber Systems and Control, State Key Laboratory of Industrial System and Control, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
J Mass Spectrom. 2013 Jun;48(6):669-76. doi: 10.1002/jms.3212.
Ambient ionization is the new revolution in mass spectrometry (MS). A microwave plasma produced by a microwave plasma torch (MPT) at atmospheric pressure was directly used for ambient mass spectrometric analysis. H3O(+) and NH4(+) and their water clusters from the background are formed and create protonated molecules and ammoniated molecules of the analytes. In the full-scan mass spectra, both the quasi-molecular ions of the analytes and their characteristic ionic fragments are obtained and provide evidence of the analyte. The successful detection of active compounds in both medicine and garlic proves that MPT has the efficient desorption/ionization capability to analyze solid samples. The obtained decay curve of nicotine in exhaled breath indicates that MPT-MS is a useful tool for monitoring gas samples in real time. These results showed that the MPT, with the advantages of stable plasma, minimal optimization, easy, solvent-free operation, and no pretreatment, is another potential technique for ambient MS.
大气压下微波等离子体炬（MPT）产生的微波等离子体被直接用于环境质谱分析。背景中的 H3O(+)和 NH4(+)及其水簇形成并产生分析物的质子化分子和氨化分子。在全扫描质谱中，既获得了分析物的准分子离子，也获得了它们的特征离子碎片，为分析物提供了证据。MPT 对医药和大蒜中的活性化合物的成功检测证明了它具有有效的解吸/电离能力，可用于分析固体样品。从呼出的呼吸中尼古丁的衰减曲线表明，MPT-MS 是一种实时监测气体样品的有用工具。这些结果表明，MPT 具有等离子体稳定、最小优化、操作简单、无需溶剂和无需预处理等优点，是环境 MS 的另一种潜在技术。
