Low-flow-rate interfaces

Liu et al. (2003) focused their method paper on the instrumental set-up for on-line capillary LC coupled with MS-MS via a low flow-rate interface, hoping that miniaturization would improve sensitivity for many biomedical applications. The system design and perfonnance were tested on DHEA sulfate and pregnenolone sulfate quantitation from 5 pL of plasma from one male volunteer. Sample preparation was simple - addition of aqueous methanol and of the deuterated analog internal standards, protein precipitation, supernatant filtration through a Cig bed, evaporation and reconstitution in 100 pL of mobile phase, of which 20 pL were injected for LC-MS-MS analysis. The DHEA sulfate concentration found was in agreement with literature values based on GC-MS and LC-MS studies. 

With respect to sample transfer, it is generally desirable to keep the total liquid intake into the interface and into the ICP-plasma as low as possible. Combinations of micro-LC with low-flow-rate interfaces , such as MCN are therefore a most promising approach to LC-ICP-MS. 

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