Chen Yu-Hao, Hung Min-Min, Urban Pawel L
Department of Chemistry, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300044, Taiwan.
iScience. 2025 Apr 8;28(5):112388. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112388. eCollection 2025 May 16.
Electrospray ionization (ESI) is one of the mainstream ionization techniques for mass spectrometry (MS) nowadays. Here, we present a new variant of ESI-MS setup, in which an electrospray emitter points to the mass spectrometer's orifice while the collimated sound (from one or four woofers) propagates orthogonally to the plume and MS inlet axis. First, we investigated deflection of electrospray microdroplets of different sizes by the sound waves using high-speed imaging. Low-frequency sound influences microdroplets of different sizes to a varied extent enabling partial separation. Second, we conducted a series of on-line experiments using a range of peptides, polymers, and amino acids. The influence of sound on microdroplet motion is more pronounced at higher amplitudes and lower frequencies of the signal used to generate the sound stream. Our findings provide a way to modulate electrospray process and can impact the application areas of electrospray including MS and materials science.
电喷雾电离（ESI）是当今质谱分析（MS）的主流电离技术之一。在此，我们展示了一种新型的电喷雾电离质谱联用装置，其中电喷雾发射器指向质谱仪的入口，而准直声音（来自一个或四个低音扬声器）垂直于羽流和质谱仪入口轴传播。首先，我们使用高速成像技术研究了不同大小的电喷雾微滴在声波作用下的偏转情况。低频声音对不同大小的微滴影响程度不同，从而实现了部分分离。其次，我们使用一系列肽、聚合物和氨基酸进行了一系列在线实验。在用于产生声流的信号具有较高振幅和较低频率时，声音对微滴运动的影响更为显著。我们的研究结果提供了一种调节电喷雾过程的方法，并且可能会影响电喷雾在质谱分析和材料科学等领域的应用。
