Electrospray mass spectrometry: application of ion evaporation theory to amino acids.

We describe the result of applying the ion evaporation theory to a series of amino acids. The very good correlation (r = 0.98) of the natural logarithms of protonated molecule intensities observed by electrospray with the difference between the hydration free energies of molecules and the gas-phase binding free energies of molecules and protons in amino acids is consistent with the ion evaporation model. It seems that the difference in the protonated molecule intensities of amino acids obtained by electrospray can be explained by a scheme in which protonated molecules in the liquid phase are extracted into the gas phase after a charged droplet is formed.