STTR Phase II: Novel Ionization Process for Materials Characterization using Mass Spectrometry

这一小型企业技术转让(STTR)第二阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是发现用于质谱学的新电离技术。这项技术将实现更低的成本、更低的能源消耗和更少的用户专业知识，这可能会将质谱仪推向服务不足的大型市场，如医疗诊断和现场便携式仪器，这些仪器专门用于国土安全、床边诊断或生物威胁检测。这项新技术改变了目前对质谱学中使用的电离过程的理解，并为新的创新提供了机会，通过改进测量来推动科学发展，影响到健康、安全和安保等领域。这个第二阶段项目的目标是开发接口，将第一阶段开发的平台整合到大多数主要质谱仪制造商的仪器上，并开发快速自动分析技术，甚至是表面分析。第二阶段的研究旨在更好地了解这项新技术的基本原理，以便以具有竞争力的价格在高灵敏度快速分析方面取得商业成功。质谱仪的广泛应用代表着一个价值40亿美元的行业，其中电离技术代表着一个重要的商业机会。这个STTR第二阶段项目计划通过提供利用简单而强大的电离技术的商业产品来彻底改变质谱学中的电离。这一新发现的过程可以自发地将大小、挥发性和非挥发性化合物转化为使用质谱仪进行分析所需的气相离子，而不需要使用目前使用的高成本激光或高电压。该方法广泛适用于直接从体液或组织中分析药物、脂类、碳水化合物结合物、多肽和蛋白质等化合物，以及合成聚合物和无机催化表面。这项技术有望在临床分析、制药、法医学、环境和食品安全等应用中增强甚至取代旧的电离方法。第二阶段项目的目标是在第一阶段开发的多功能平台在各种制造商的仪器上实施，使过程自动化，以实现更低的成本和更快的分析，并提供一个自动化的表面分析平台。除了确定最佳的样品制备方法和溶剂/基质的选择外，研究目标还包括创新的自动样品引入技术，该技术消除了对传统“离子源”的需求，同时减少了目前阻碍小型、低成本便携式质谱仪开发的泵浦要求。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will be the discovery of new ionization technology for use with mass spectrometry. This technology will enable lower cost, lower energy use, and reduced user expertise, which may potentially drive mass spectrometry into large and underserved markets such as medical diagnostics and field portable instruments designed specifically for use in homeland security, bedside diagnostics, or bio-threat detection. The new technology changes the current understanding of ionization processes used in mass spectrometry and provides opportunities for new innovations to advance science through improved measurements, impacting fields such as health, safety, and security. The aims of this Phase II project are to develop interfaces to incorporate the platform developed in Phase I on most major mass spectrometer manufacturer's instruments and to develop technologies for rapid automate analyses even of surfaces. The research of Phase II is aimed to better understand the fundamentals of this new technology in order to drive commercial success in high sensitivity rapid analyses at a competitive price. Mass spectrometers are widely used representing a $4 billion industry of which ionization technology represents a significant commercial opportunity.This STTR Phase II project proposes to revolutionize ionization in mass spectrometry by providing commercial products that utilize a simple and powerful ionization technology. The newly discovered process spontaneously converts large and small, volatile and nonvolatile compounds to the gas-phase ions necessary for analysis using mass spectrometry without employing currently used high cost lasers or high voltage. The method is broadly applicable for analysis of compounds such as drugs, lipids, carbohydrate conjugates, peptides, and proteins directly from bodily fluids or tissue, as well as synthetic polymers and inorganic catalytic surfaces. This technology is anticipated to augment or even replace older ionization methods in applications such as clinical analyses, pharmaceuticals, forensics, environmental, and food safety. The aims of the Phase II project are to implement the multifunctional platform developed during Phase I on a variety of manufacturer's instruments, automate the process to allow lower cost and faster analyses, and provide an automated surface analysis platform. Besides determining the best sample preparation methodologies and choice of solvents/matrices, the research objectives include innovative automated sample introduction technologies that eliminate the need for a conventional "ion source" while reducing the pumping requirements, which currently hinder development of small, low-cost portable mass spectrometers.