History
IMS was first developed primarily by Earl W. McDaniel of Georgia Institute of Technology in the 1950s and 1960s when he used drift cells with low applied electric fields to study gas phase ion mobilities and reactions. In the following decades, he coupled his new technique with a magnetic-sector mass spectrometer, with others also utilizing his techniques in new ways. IMS cells have since been attached to many other mass spectrometers and high-performance liquid chromatography setups. Currently IMS is a widely-used technique implemented by many, and improvements and other uses are continually being developed.
Outside of laboratory purposes, IMS has found great usage as a detection tool. More than 10,000 IMS devices are in use worldwide in airports, and the US Army has more than 50,000 IMS devices. In industrial settings, uses of IMS include checking equipment cleanliness and detecting emission contents, such as determining the amount of hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid in a stack gas from a process.
Read more about this topic: Ion-mobility Spectrometry
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