ABSTRACT
Traditional applications for ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) have primarily revolved around security and safety because of the rapid response time of the instrument coupled with its selectivity and sensitivity. Its speed, sensitivity, and selectivity, however, open opportunities for expansion into other areas of analysis.1 Pharmaceuticals offer a particularly promising target area for application of IMS because, unlike environmental and biological samples, pharmaceutical mixtures are usually well dened and not too complex. In addition, many pharmaceuticals have basic sites on the molecules that produce high proton afnities; thus, they respond well to the ion-molecule ionization sources used in positive-mode IMS. Analytical methods currently used in the pharmaceutical industry revolve around some type of chromatography, either liquid or gas, that is usually slow and expensive. For routine, repetitive , and rapid analyses of pharmaceutical samples, IMS offers a unique and efcient alternative to chromatography.
