PNNL

Abstract

The utility of ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for separation of mixtures and structural characterization of ions has been demonstrated extensively, including in the biological and nanoscience contexts. A major attraction of IMS is its speed, several orders of magnitude above that of condensed-phase separations. Nonetheless, IMS combined with mass spectrometry (MS) has remained a niche technique, substantially due to limited sensitivity resulting from ion losses at the IMS-MS junction. We have developed a new electrospray ionization (ESI)-IMS-QToF MS instrument that incorporates electrodynamic ion funnels at both front ESI-IMS and back IMS-QToF interfaces. The front funnel is of the novel “hourglass” design that efficiently accumulates ions and pulses them into the IMS drift tubes. Even for drift tubes of two meter length, ion transmission through IMS and on to QToF is essentially lossless across the range of ion masses relevant to most applications. The RF ion focusing at IMS terminus does not degrade IMS resolving power, which exceeds 100 (for singly-charged ions) and is close to the theoretical limit. The overall sensitivity of present ESI-IMS-MS system is shown to be comparable to that of commercial ESI-MS, which should make IMS-MS suitable for analyses of complex mixtures with ultra-high sensitivity and exceptional throughput.