Fundamentals of ion mobility spectrometry

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in ion mobility spectrometry fundamentals, focusing on how ion mobility depends on experimental conditions, predicting collision cross sections, and understanding ion structures in the gas phase.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent progress in understanding ion mobility and collision cross sections, aiding transferability and predictive capabilities.

Findings

Dependence of ion mobility on gas, electric field, and temperature clarified.

Methods for predicting collision cross sections for new analytes discussed.

Insights into gas-phase ion structures and their relation to solution structures provided.

Abstract

Fundamental questions in ion mobility spectrometry have practical implications for analytical applications in general, and omics in particular, in three respects. (1) Understanding how ion mobility and collision cross section values depend on the collision gas, on the electric field and on temperature is crucial to ascertain their transferability across instrumental platforms. (2) Predicting collision cross section values for new analytes is necessary to exploit the full potential of ion mobility in discovery workflows. (3) Finally, understanding the fate of ion structures in the gas phase is essential to infer meaningful information on solution structures based on gas-phase ion mobility measurements. We review here the most recent advances in ion mobility fundamentals, relevant to these three aspects.