Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets as a multifunctional background-free matrix to detect small molecules and complicated samples by MALDI mass spectrometry.

Here we report the innovation of using hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets as the first background-free matrix among the full laser pulse energy range for the analysis and imaging of small molecule metabolites and as an adsorbent for the enrichment of samples. Due to its totally free background and high efficiency as an adsorbent and matrix, h-BN has promising prospects in metabolomics, MALDI imaging, and environmental analysis.