Atmospheric pressure ion source probe for a mass spectrometer

An ionization source useful for ionizing analyte in a solvent effluent at or near atmospheric pressure using either electrospray ionization (ESI) or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) and ionizing the vapors induced by application of heat to analyte introduced directly into the ionization region by use of a probe device in such a manner as not to interfere with ESI or APCI operation except during actual use of the probe device for sample introduction and introducing the ions of the vapors from the atmospheric pressure region into the vacuum region of the mass spectrometer for mass analysis of the ions, the source comprising:

• an ionization arrangement,
• an enclosure for enclosing the ionization arrangement thereby defining
• an ionization region, the enclosure having at least one port for introducing a liquid effluent and a port for introducing a probe, the ports may be in the same or different locations on the source enclosure, and may also have an associated flange to align the probe for inserting solid or liquid materials affixed to a heat resistant material into the enclosure and an aperture for introducing ions into the vacuum region of the mass spectrometer,
• a port for introducing a heated gas to assist in vaporizing the analyte introduced by the solids/liquid API probe, the port may be the same or different from the port used for introduction of a liquid effluent in ESI or APCI operation, the flange of the port used to introduce the analyte by use of a probe device being constructed to align the heat resistant member and thus the material to be vaporized in the heated gas stream, or
• a means of assisting in vaporizing the analyte introduced with the solid/liquid probe by means of resistive or convective heating.