Mass spectrometry (MS) is an indispensable analytical technique contributing towards both fundamental research and real-life applications thanks to its high detection sensitivity, and specificity. The recent developments on ambient ionization techniques, whose general feature is that sampling and ionization are performed under atmospheric pressure with only minimal or no sample preparation involved, can potentially enhance the applicability of MS by reducing the time and cost required for analysis and by allowing new applications. Since the development of the first ambient ionization technique, desorption electrospray ionization (DESI), in 2004, a wide variety of ambient ionization techniques with different ionization mechanisms, e.g., electrospray ionization, plasma desorption, laser ablation, and dielectric barrier discharge, were developed, some of which are already commercially available. The applicability of different ambient ionization mass spectrometric techniques in fundamental research, such as tissue imaging and reaction monitoring, and real applications, such as point-of-care analysis, disease diagnosis, food analysis, environmental analysis, etc., have since been widely demonstrated.
Although the tremendous potential of ambient ionization mass spectrometry in various areas has been demonstrated, the analytical performance, such as sensitivity, selectivity, reproducibility, quantification accuracy, comprehensiveness of molecular detection, and level of matrix interference, of these techniques are generally lower than traditional mass spectrometric techniques, such as LC/MS and GC/MS. Therefore, ambient ionization techniques still have a large margin of improvement and development. In addition, the detailed mechanisms of many ambient ionization techniques are not well-understood. Thus, more studies are still required to understand the fundamentals of various techniques, which could provide insights for their further advancement. Ambient ionization techniques also have high potential to extend to more applications because of the feature of open-surface sampling and the commercial availability of some of the techniques. This Research Topic aims to collect high quality manuscripts on further refinement and development, fundamental studies, and new applications of ambient ionization techniques.
We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:
• Refinement and methodological advances of existing ambient ionization techniques towards improving analytical performance
• Development of integrated ambient ionization techniques, i.e., a single system combining multiple ionization techniques
• Fundamental studies on mechanisms of ambient ionization techniques
• New applications of ambient ionization techniques
• Design and development of new ambient ionization techniques
We would like to acknowledge
Dr Haidi Yin, who has acted as a coordinator and has contributed to the preparation of the proposal for this Research Topic.
