Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry: A Technique to Access the Information beyond the Molecular Weight of the Analyte

Figure 7

Time history of the charged methanol droplet produced by microelectrospray process. The droplet at the top left is a typical parent droplet created at the ES capillary tip. The successive solvent evaporation and Coulomb fission leads to the charged nanodroplets that are the precursors of the gas-phase analyte ions. The numbers beside the droplets give radius R (μm) and number of elementary charges N on the ES droplet; Δt corresponds to the time required for evaporative droplet shrinkage to size where fission occurs. Only the first three successive fissions of a parent droplet are shown. At the bottom right, the fission of the offspring droplet to produce the charged nanodroplets is shown. The inset shows a drawing of droplet jet fission based on actual flash microphotograph. (Adapted with permission from [22], Copyright 1993, American Chemical Society).