METHOD AND APPARATUS TO DESOLVATE IONS AT HIGH PRESSURE AND TO IMPROVE TRANSMISSION AND CONTAMINATION IN THE COUPLING OF MASS SPECTROMETERS AND MOBILITY SPECTROMETERS WITH IONIZERS

摘要

A method and apparatus that operate at near atmospheric pressure are described to simultaneously (i) desolvate the droplets produced by an ions source (including electrospray sources), to (ii) separate the surviving droplets from the analyte ions, to (iii) increase the transmission of ions through the inlet of an analyzer, while (iv) preventing the passage through said inlet of neutral contaminants and low mobility species and droplets that could potentially impair the operation of the analyzer, which include mass spectrometers and ion mobility spectrometers. In the present invention, contaminant low mobility species are efficiently deflected away from the analyzer inlet by a sweep flow. The sweep flow is laminar, affects ions in a region immediately after they leave the ionizer, and provides a preliminary separation of species. Consequently, the dilution effect produced by coulombic repulsion is minimized, and thus, analyte ions pass through the analyzer inlet with a higher transmission.