COMBINED LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS-SPECTROMETRY .3. APPLICATIONS OF THERMOSPRAY

In Part II (9), the basic instrument setup of the thermospray (TS) interface was described. This device was originally designed as a general direct coupling technique to a liquid chromatograph (LC/TS/MS), but it is often used in a direct flow injection mode (TS/MS). General operating principles, optimization strategies, and possible ionization mechanisms were also reviewed and commented on in Part II. This third part in the series of reviews dedicated to LC/MS coupling techniques covers analytical applications using a thermospray interface. The covered literature being particularly abundant, inorganic applications when using a thermospray nebulizer as a sampling device for spectroscopic methods other than mass spectrometry (for example, atomic absorption or emission spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy, etc.) and direct coupling of the TS interface to supercritical fluid chromatography have been purposely omitted. The same convention for the numbering system as in Part I and II is again adopted in this text. The term "thermospray" is unambiguous only when it covers a mechanical device that samples a liquid solution introduced into a mass spectrometer. Consequently, LC/TS/MS was purposely chosen, instead of other frequently used abbreviations and expressions such as thermospray LC/MS, TS-LC/MS, etc., because LC/TS/MS correctly describes the logical order of the chained instruments or techniques used.