Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer interface

M.A. Baldwin and F.W. McLafferty, Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry interface. I The direct introduction of liquid solutions into a chemical ionization mass spectrometer, Org. Mass Spectrom., 7 (1973) 1111-1112. 

The method for chloroacetanilide soil metabolites in water determines concentrations of ethanesulfonic acid (ESA) and oxanilic acid (OXA) metabolites of alachlor, acetochlor, and metolachlor in surface water and groundwater samples by direct aqueous injection LC/MS/MS. After injection, compounds are separated by reversed-phase HPLC and introduced into the mass spectrometer with a TurboIonSpray atmospheric pressure ionization (API) interface. Using direct aqueous injection without prior SPE and/or concentration minimizes losses and greatly simplifies the analytical procedure. Standard addition experiments can be used to check for matrix effects. With multiple-reaction monitoring in the negative electrospray ionization mode, LC/MS/MS provides superior specificity and sensitivity compared with conventional liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) or liquid chromatography/ultraviolet detection (LC/UV), and the need for a confirmatory method is eliminated. In summary,... 

All gas chromotography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) analyses of monomers and intermediates were performed on a Finnigan 1020 GC/MS using a 30-m RSL-150 fused silica capillary column. Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/NS) was performed on a Finnigan 4500 mass spectrometer using acetonitrile-water eluent and a moving belt LC/MS interface. 

LC/MS (Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry)—Chromatography system in which an HPLC is married to a mass spectrometric detector through an evaporated, ionizing interface. A variety of mass spectrometers are used to produce various LC/MS and LC/MS/MS configurations. MS detectors are universal, mass detectors that provide molecular weight information and can give a definitive identification of separated compounds. 

LC/MS instrument in which liquid chromatography is directly interfaced to a mass spectrometer... 

A new technique that resembles the GC-MS technique described here is high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). An HPLC instrument is coupled through a special interface to a mass spectrometer. The substances that elute from the HPLC column are detected by the mass spectrometer, and their mass spectra can be displayed, analyzed, and compared with standard spectra found in the computer library built into the instrument. 

Interfacing mass spectrometry with other analytical techniques (Section F) necessitates the use of specially designed interfaces and ionizing sources. These include thermospray, electrospray and ionspray for liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and an inductively coupled plasma torch (ICP) for ICP-MS (Topic E5). For gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), the carrier gas flows directly into the spectrometer where El ionization can then be used. 

For mixture.s the picture is different. Unless the mixture is to be examined by MS/MS methods, usually it will be necessary to separate it into its individual components. This separation is most often done by gas or liquid chromatography. In the latter, small quantities of emerging mixture components dissolved in elution solvent would be laborious to deal with if each component had to be first isolated by evaporation of solvent before its introduction into the mass spectrometer. In such circumstances, the direct introduction, removal of solvent, and ionization provided by electrospray is a boon and puts LC/MS on a level with GC/MS for mixture analysis. Further, GC is normally concerned with volatile, relatively low-molecular-weight compounds and is of little or no use for the many polar, water soluble, high-molecular-mass substances such as the peptides, proteins, carbohydrates, nucleotides, and similar substances found in biological systems. LC/MS with an electrospray interface is frequently used in biochemical research and medical analysis. 

The mass spectrometer inlet system for liquid chromatography, often termed the interface between the two component techniques, must therefore remove as much of the unwanted mobile phase as possible while still passing the maximum amount of analyte into the mass spectrometer. This must be done in such a way that the mass spectrometer is still able to generate aU of the analytical information of which it is capable. 

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