Significant increase in the efficiency and speed of atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) in tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) will have a profound impact on its applications to the entire analytical field of characterization of drugs, metabolites, lipids, steroids, etc. A broad applicability of APCI-based MS analysis makes it a unique analytical tool specifically targeting trace amounts of many chemical and biological substances. We plan to build a novel APCI ion source based on atmospheric dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) to significantly improve efficiency and specificity of ACPI-MS based detection method.
Atmospheric pressure ionization is a broadly used technique in the analysis of complex chemical and biological samples providing reliable identification of drugs, disease-specific metabolites, steroids, antibiotics, etc. utilizing mass-spectrometers. We plan to develop a novel APCI source that will provide better sensitivity and specificity. This source will substantially improve and accelerate mass-spectrometry based characterization of biologically important molecules. The source will be easily incorporated into a design of a variety of tandem mass spectrometers.
