Vapor Treatment of Charged Droplets for Enhanced Electrospray Ionization Performance

普渡大学的Scott McLuckey教授得到了化学测量和成像项目的支持，该项目旨在通过气相离子形成和转化的新方法扩展质谱分析能力。质谱法是表征气体离子质量和结构的有力手段。McLuckey博士正在探索产生气态离子的新方法，该方法基于将带电液滴和/或簇暴露于反应性蒸汽中。改变带电液滴中的化学环境会对观察到的质谱产生巨大的影响，包括电离效率和离子类型。这项工作将增加可用于后续质谱分析的分析物种类的选择范围，因为它代表了一种介于大块凝聚相和气相之间的方法。这项工作对扩大和提高质谱分析的性能和适用性具有重要的潜力。这项工作是高度跨学科的，使学生接触到离子物理，离子化学，仪器仪表和分析化学，以及特定于测量挑战的问题（例如，药物分析，生物标志物检测，蛋白质相互作用研究等）。

Prof. Scott McLuckey at Purdue University is supported by the Chemical Measurement and Imaging Program for investigations aimed at expanding analytical capabilities of mass spectrometry via novel approaches to gas-phase ion formation and transformation. Mass spectrometry is a powerful means of characterizing the mass and structure of gaseous ions. Dr. McLuckey is exploring novel approaches for generating gaseous ions based on exposing charged droplets and/or clusters to reactive vapors. Altering the chemical environment in charged droplets can have dramatic effects on the observed mass spectra, with respect both to ionization efficiency and ion-type. This work will add to the range of options available to manipulate analyte species for subsequent mass spectrometric analysis because it represents an approach that is intermediate between the bulk condensed-phase and the gas-phase. This work has significant potential for expanding and improving the performance and applicability of mass spectrometry. The work is highly multi-disciplinary, and exposes students to ion physics, ion chemistry, instrumentation, and analytical chemistry, in addition to issues specific to the measurement challenge (e.g., pharmaceutical analysis, biomarker detection, protein interaction research, etc.).