Advances in Ambient Ionization for Mass Spectrometry

Abstract Over the past decade, ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) has become an important scientific research tool which has been widely used in various important fields such as pharmaceuticals, food, environment, public safety, clinic diagnosis and so on. Ambient ionization technology, as the key for AMS analysis, allows the direct sampling/ionization of analytes from raw practical samples without any sample pretreatment, and has greatly improved the analytical efficiency. At present, nearly 100 of different ambient ionization technologies have been developed for the study of complex solid, gaseous, liquid, and even viscous samples. Herein, the ambient ionization methods were introduced in the aspect of energy and charge transfer process, and the new ambient ionization devices developed in the recent 5 years were briefly summarized and discussed. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of the ambient ionization technology and the possible development direction of atmospheric ionization technology in the future were prospected.