It is good that from time to time, a group of leading workers in a field should come together to discuss the current status of their research, and the direction in which it will most probably develop. We should all be grateful to the Royal Society in acting as hosts to this conference and to Professor Johnson and Professor Beynon for organizing it. I think that all will agree that the high quality of the papers presented have made this occasion a very memorable and valuable one. I should also like to thank the organizers for the relaxed atmosphere of the Conference, which made it so enjoyable. The last decade has seen a tremendous growth in both the instrumentation and techniques of mass spectrometry and the applications of mass spectrometry to organic and biological chemistry. On the instrumentation side, the modification of a double focusing mass spectrometer to yield ion kinetic energy spectra, giving information about the progenitors of a given ion, and the reversed geometry instrument, yielding information as to the daughter ions of a given parent, have both considerably contributed to our knowledge of the fragmentation of organic molecules. Again the development of special sources, field ionization and field desorption, the linking of a gas or high pressure liquid chromatograph to a mass spectrometer, and the introduction of high pressure sources for chemical ionization, have all made important contributions to organic and biological chemistry. The study of negative ions has also shed considerable light on the structure of organic molecules. Finally, the linking of computers with mass spectrometers has enabled results to be obtained very much more rapidly than in the past, and also made possible library searches to identify the substances present. Mr Craig discussed recent modifications in the source, analysis systems and detector systems of commercial mass spectrometers. Of particular importance was the increased sensitivity obtained by more effective ion collection. Among the newer techniques described during the meeting were g.c.-m.s. (Professor Jellum, Professor Jackson, Dr Morris, Professor Brooks and Professor Eglinton), collisional activation (Professor McLafferty and Dr Morris), negative ion mass spectrometry (Professor Jennings) and reversed geometry mass spectrometry (Professor Beynon).
The C–F bond as a conformational tool in organic and biological chemistry
