Work

Shaping electrospray plume with convergent sound beams

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Electrospray ionization (ESI) is one of the mainstream ionization techniques for mass spectrometry (MS) nowadays. Here, we present a new variant of ESI-MS setup, in which an electrospray emitter points to the mass spectrometer's orifice while the collimated sound (from one or four woofers) propagates orthogonally to the plume and MS inlet axis. First, we investigated deflection of electrospray microdroplets of different sizes by the sound waves using high-speed imaging. Low-frequency sound influences microdroplets of different sizes to a varied extent enabling partial separation. Second, we conducted a series of on-line experiments using a range of peptides, polymers, and amino acids. The influence of sound on microdroplet motion is more pronounced at higher amplitudes and lower frequencies of the signal used to generate the sound stream. Our findings provide a way to modulate electrospray process and can impact the application areas of electrospray including MS and materials science.

Source: iScience

DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112388

Authors: Yu-Hao Chen, Min-Min Hung, Pawel L. Urban

Institution: National Tsing Hua University

Language: English

Topic: Mass Spectrometry Techniques and Applications

Subfield: Spectroscopy

Field: Chemistry

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,240

Funder: National Science and Technology Council