Gaseous compounds are usually on-line detectable on sensors. The limitations of conventional sensors are suffering from incapability for exactly identifying multiple components as well as incompatibility to possible toxicants in every odor sample. Herein, we discuss an inlet modification to the laboratory standard mass spectrometer, inspired by the sensitive olfactory systems of animals, for direct sniffing, established by connecting a mini pump to the nebulizer gas tubing. The modified mass spectrometry method—sniffing-mass spectrometry (sniffing-MS)—can acquire detailed fingerprint spectra of mixed odors and shows high tolerance to toxicants. Furthermore, the method has a low limit of detection in the order of parts per trillion and is a ‘sampling-free’ technique for analyzing various gaseous compounds simultaneously, thus offering versatility for smelling daily commodities, tracking diffusion, and locating position of odors. Sniffing-MS can mimic or even surpass the olfaction of animals and is applicable for analyzing gaseous/volatile compounds, especially those polar compounds, in a simple manner depending on the intrinsic molecular mass-to-charge ratio.

气态化合物通常可在传感器上在线检测。传统传感器的局限性在于无法准确识别多种成分，以及与每种气味样本中可能存在的有毒物质不相容。在这里，我们讨论了实验室标准质谱仪的入口修改，灵感来自动物敏感的嗅觉系统，用于直接嗅探，通过将微型泵连接到雾化器气体管道建立。改进的质谱法——嗅探-质谱法（sniffing-MS）——可以获得混合气味的详细指纹图谱，并对有毒物质表现出高耐受性。此外，该方法的检测限低至万亿分之一，是一种同时分析各种气态化合物的“免采样”技术，从而为闻日常商品、跟踪扩散和定位气味位置提供了多功能性。嗅探-MS 可以模仿甚至超越动物的嗅觉，适用于分析气态/挥发性化合物，特别是那些极性化合物，以简单的方式取决于固有的分子质量电荷比。