Surface ionization mass spectrometry of drugs in the thermal and hyperthermal energy range - A comparative study

Thermal and hyperthermal surface ionization (SI) mass Spectra of nicotine, caffeine and lidocaine were obtained using a rhenium oxide surface. Thermal surface ionization was studied on an oxidized surface positioned inside an electron impact ion source, while hyperthermal surface ionization (HSI) was obtained upon seeding the compounds into a hydrogen or helium supersonic molecular beam that scattered from the rhenium oxide surface. Both HSI and SI provide rich, informative and complementary mass spectral information. The results indicate that SI follows thermal dissociation processes on the surface prior to the desorption of the ion, while in HSI no thermal equilibrium is established and the ionization process is impulsive, followed by mostly unimolecular ion dissociation. HSI mass spectra are similar to electron impact mass spectra in the fragment ion masses, but the observed relative intensities are different. HSI is a softer ionization method compared to SI, and enables the degree of ion fragmentation to be tuned so that it can be minimized to a low level at low molecular kinetic energy. In SI, limited control over the degree of fragmentation is possible through the surface temperature, The analytical mass spectrometric applications of SI and HSI are briefly mentioned.