Recent applications of ambient ionization mass spectrometry in environmental analysis

Continuous pollution issues with increasing types of contaminants have emerged in recent years and attracted global attention. Fast, precise, and reliable analytical methods for screening and determination of targeted and unknown pollutants are desired to evaluate the changing pollution situations and potential environmental effects. The rapid development of ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AIMS) renders good opportunities to in-situ, real-time, and rapid analysis for trace emerging environmental pollutants with minimal or no sample pretreatment. In this review article, the ionization mechanisms, configurations of the instruments, hyphenations with various compatible pretreatment means and analytical devices, and operation parameters are discussed. In particular, the typical applications of AIMS for detecting multitude of pollutants present in various environmental samples are summarized.