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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Real-time Breath Analysis by Using Secondary Nanoelectrospray Ionization Coupled to High Resolution Mass Spectrometry
Published on: March 9, 2018
Molecular characterization of organic aerosols using nanospray-desorption/electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry
Patrick J Roach1, Julia Laskin, Alexander Laskin
1Chemical and Materials Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, MSIN K8-88, Richland, Washington 99352, USA.
Abstract:
Nanospray desorption electrospray ionization (nano-DESI) combined with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS) is a promising approach for the detailed, molecular-level chemical characterization of atmospheric organic aerosols (OA) collected in laboratory and field experiments. The nano-DESI technique possesses distinct advantages of technical simplicity, enhanced sensitivity, and signal stability. In nano-DESI, analyte is desorbed into a solvent bridge formed between two capillaries and the analysis surface, which enables fast and efficient characterization of OA collected on substrates without sample preparation. Stable signals achieved using nano-DESI make it possible to obtain high-quality HR-MS data both for laboratory-generated and field-collected OA using only a small amount of material (<10 ng). Furthermore, nano-DESI enables the efficient detection of chemically labile compounds in OA, which is important for understanding chemical aging phenomena.
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