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Updated: Jul 11, 2025

Analysis of Volatile and Oxidation Sensitive Compounds Using a Cold Inlet System and Electron Impact Mass Spectrometry
Published on: September 5, 2014
Recent advances in entirely hand-held ionization sources for mass spectrometry
Jinghan Fan1,2, Wenbo Ma3, Yile Yu1,2
1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Living Biosystems, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
Abstract:
Ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AIMS) has been developing explosively since its first debut. The ionization process was hence able to be achieved under atmospheric pressure, facilitating on-site field analysis in a variety of areas, such as clinical diagnosis, metabolic phenotyping, and surface analysis. As part of the ambitious goal of making MS a general device that can be used in everyday life, lots of efforts have been paid to miniaturize the ionization source. This review discusses avant-garde sources that could be entirely hand-held without any accessories. The structure and applications of the devices are described in detail as well. They could be expediently used in real-time and on-site analysis, presenting a great future potential for the routinizing of MS.
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