Introduction to Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS)

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is an analytical technique used to separate and identify ionized molecules in the gas phase based on their mobility in a carrier buffer gas and an applied electric field. This introductory module will detail IMS instrument components and how separation occurs as well as considering the advantages of hyphenating the technique with chromatography and particularly mass spectrometry to provide two-dimensional separation data which can be particularly useful in the analysis of biomolecules.

Topics include:

• IMS components
• Types of ion mobility spectrometers
• Hyphenated IMS techniques
• IMS for biomolecules