A commercially available chip-based infusion nanoelectrospray ionization system was used to ionize metallo alkylporphyrins for mass spectrometric detection and structure elucidation by mass spectrometry. Different ionic forms of model compounds (nickel (II), vanadyl (II), copper (II), and cobalt (II) octaethylporphyrin) were created by using two different types of conductive pipette tips supplied with the device. These pipette tips provide the conductive contact to solution at which the electrolysis process inherent to electrospray takes places in the device. The original unmodified, bare carbon-impregnated plastic pipette tips were exploited to intentionally electrochemically oxidize (ionize) the porphyrins to form molecular radical cations for detection. Use of modified pipette tips, with a surface coating devised to inhibit analytemass transport to the surface or slow the kinetics of the analyte electrochemical reactions, was shown to limit the ionic species observed in the mass spectra of these porphyrins largely, but not exclusively, to the protonated molecule. Under the conditions of these experiments, the effective upper potential limit for oxidation with the uncoated pipette tip was 1.1 V or less, and the coated pipette tips effectively prevented the oxidation of analytes with redox potentials greater than about 0.25 V. Product ion spectra of either molecular ionic species could be used to determine the alkyl chain length on the porphyrin macrocycle. The utility of this electrochemical ionization approach for the analysis of naturally occurring samples was demonstrated using nickel geoporphyrin fractions isolated from Gilsonite bitumen. Acquiring neutral loss spectra as a means to improve the specificity of detection in these complex natural samples was also illustrated. © Springer-Verlag (outside the USA) 2012.

This paper describes the coupling of ambient pressure transmission geometry laser ablation with a liquid-phase sample collection into a continuous flow surface sampling probe/electrospray emitter for mass spectrometry based chemical imaging. The flow probe/emitter device was placed in close proximity to the surface to collect the sample plume produced by laser ablation. The sample collected was immediately aspirated into the probe and onto the electrospray emitter, ionized and detected with the mass spectrometer. Freehand drawn ink lines and letters and an inked fingerprint on microscope slides were analyzed. The circular laser ablation area was about 210 μm in diameter and under the conditions used in these experiments the spatial resolution, as determined by the size of the surface features distinguished in the chemical images, was about 100 μm. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.