9th International Conference on Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry and its Applications

In the 1990’s proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) using H3O+ reagent ions became a widely used analytical instrument with applications in Environmental Science, Medical Applications and Food Technology due to the large amount of volatile organic compounds (VOC), which can be quantitatively ionized. In 1998 the spin-off company Ionicon Analytik GmbH (www.ionicon.com) was founded to provide PTR-MS instruments to a growing user community and to develop the technology further. Today many research institutions and companies use this technology throughout the world. The conference topics of this year conference are Environmental Science, Food & Flavour Science, Health Science and Instruments / Technology and Future Trends. I would like to thank the session chairs Karena McKinney from Colby College, USA (Environmental Science), Franco Biasioli from FEM, Italy (Food & Flavour Science), Jonathan Beauchamp from Fraunhofer IVV, Germany (Health Science) and Jens Herbig from Ionicon Analytik, Austria (Industrial Applications) for putting together an exciting programme, which exemplifies the growing number of PTR-MS users in various scientific disciplines and industrial applications.