Ionization methods for the mass spectrometry of organometallic compounds.

The rapid development of new ionization methods has greatly expanded the ability of mass spectrometry to target diverse areas of chemistry. Synthetic organometallic and inorganic chemists often find themselves with interesting characterization problems that mass spectrometry could potentially find the answer for, but without a guide for choosing the appropriate method of analysis. This tutorial review seeks to provide that guidance via a simple flow chart followed by a brief description of how each common ionization method works. It covers all of the commonly used ionization techniques as well as promising variants and aims to be a resource of first resort for organometallic chemists and analysts tackling a new problem.