The design of the electrospray interface allowed ions to be created and desolvated under ambient conditions with minimal solvent contamination to the drift tube. Separation selectivity was shown to be altered by changing the drift gas flow rate. Issues of using gas-phase electrophoresis as an ultrahigh speed separation technique are discussed. Unfortunately, as is expected, traditional separation methods lose separation quality in terms of efficiency and resolution as analysis times are decreased.
Separations occur within milliseconds.
Traditionally, GPE has used radioactive nickel-63 as an ion source. Unfortunately, solely gas-phase compounds could be ionized. This has allowed the analysis of liquid samples containing compounds ranging from low molecular weight to large biomolecules. There have been no reports, to our knowledge, of the operation of an electrospray GPE instrument under ambient conditions capable of overcoming the above mentioned obstacles. There are a number of reasons why an electrospray GPE instrument operating under ambient conditions would be attractive.