Development of Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometry and Its Applications

Recently, along with the development of ambient ionization sources and ion manipulation methods, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) has been widely employed as a pre-separation stage for mass spectrometry, playing a very important role in the analytical and bioanalytical fields. As increasing the sample complexity, IMS with higher resolving power and sensitivity is more and more required. Trapped ion mobility spectrometry (TIMS) is a recently developed IMS technology, which is capable of reaching ultra-high resolving power and storing ions ahead of mobility analysis. So far, several commercial instruments based on TIMS coupling to MS have been launched. This review focused on the development of TIMS and its applications. Firstly, the working principles of TIMS were introduced as well as the strategies for obtaining accurate ion mobility value. Secondly, the resulting effects of experimental parameters on resolving power were explained. Thirdly, the application of TIMS-MS modalities in the analytical field and their accompanied limitations were discussed. Finally, a brief perspective on the future development of TIMS was provided.