Development of an inverse low-temperature plasma ionization source for liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry.

The argon iLTP ion source presented in this work shows promising approaches in the field of ionization of small organic molecules. The mechanism related to the discharge gas argon has not been elucidated so far and further investigations are needed. The iLTP ion source shows a very good performance with UHPLC coupling, even at increased flow rates. It could be shown that an argon iLTP can compete with the helium dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) preferred in the literature, making it a more economical choice.