Collision-induced Dissociation

Collision-induced Dissociation (CID) is a technique used in mass spectrometry to separate, identify, and quantify ions in the gas phase. It works by introducing a gaseous sample into a high-pressure chamber, where it collides with an inert gas, typically helium or nitrogen. This collision causes the sample molecules to break apart into component parts, which can then be identified and/or quantified by their respective mass-to-charge ratios. CID is an important tool for a variety of analytical applications, such as drug discovery, environmental testing, and food safety testing. It is also useful for determining the structure of large and complex molecules, as the fragmentation patterns created by CID can be used to infer the molecular structure of the original sample.