Click-and-Analyze: Automated Pinpoint Ambient Mass Spectrometry with Sheath-Flow Probe Electrospray Ionization

We report a robotic sheath-flow probe electrospray ionization mass spectrometry system with a new probe design and automated positioning capabilities for pinpoint ambient mass spectrometry. The system integrates a 3-axis Cartesian robot with two cameras: a fixed global camera for coarse positioning and a movable local camera for fine alignment, enabling users to designate sampling spots by mouse-clicking on live images displayed on the graphical user interface. A microcontroller is used for voltage control, current monitoring, and the detection of probe–sample contact. Sampling, transfer, ionization, and cleaning are fully automated under computer control, and the sheath liquid is supplied by a programmable syringe pump to maintain a stable flow rate. The system successfully analyzed aqueous standards, beverages, and water-rich soft materials such as jelly and fruit slices, yielding stable ion signals with negligible carry-over between measurements.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Mass Spectrometry

• Publication date

  2025-12-06

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Chemistry, Engineering

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.5702/massspectrometry.A0179PMID 41377608PMCID 12686337
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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