Application and development trends of gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry for traditional Chinese medicine, clinical, food and environmental analysis

[Display omitted] •Advances of gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (GC–IMS) are applied in many research areas.•GC–IMS could detect volatile ingredients with rapid, non-destructive, accurate and high-throughput screening.•GC–IMS are promising tools for traditional Chinese medicine, clinical research, food industry, environmental protection, polymer and petrochemical analysis. Rapid, non-destructive, accurate, and high-throughput screening of volatile ingredients plays an important role in the field of analysis. Gas chromatography–ion mobility spectrometry (GC–IMS) has the advantages of high separation efficiency, high sensitivity, no requirement for sample pretreatment and fast response, which are important for the nondestructive and rapid detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This paper reviews the application of GC–IMS in the past 10 years. First, the working principle, experimental process, data processing methods, and advantages of GC–IMS are outlined and followed by the research progress in the use of GC–IMS in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) detection, clinical research, food industry, environmental protection, polymer, and petrochemical analysis. Finally, the development trends in GC–IMS are summarized and presented, as well as the possible expansion areas of GC–IMS in the future.