Mass spectrometer, types triple quadrupole

This tandem MS-based method has been successfully adopted in more than 30 laboratories around the world and can be viewed as the current gold standard method for CGA structure elucidation. Furthermore, the method has been adapted to other types of tandem mass spectrometers including triple quadrupole mass spectrometers [8,9]. 

Quadrupole mass spectrometers [10] or quadrupole ion traps are today the most widely used mass spectrometers. The physical bases were described in the early 1950s by Paul and Steinwedel. For his work Paul received the Nobel Prize in 1989 [11]. Triple quadrupole mass spectrometers have become very popular instruments for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Yost et al. [12] built in 1978 the first instrument and it took four years before this type of instrument was commercialized. The coupling with liquid chromatography or gas chromatography is well established and benchtop ion traps or quadrupoles are nowadays part of the standard equipment of many analytical laboratories. 

Apparatus, developed in this laboratory for two types of thermochemical measurements—(a) gas-phase ion molecule equilibria and (b) collision-induced dissociation (CID) threshold measurements—will be described. For both purposes, a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer is used. It is only the front end modifications that provide the conditions for (a) or (b). 

Usually, concentration is measured as a pressure and may differ widely according to the type of mass spectrometer used. The triple quadrupole mass spectrometer may operate with pressures up to 1 x 10 1 Pa in the reaction region. At the other extreme, ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometers operate poorly at pressures >1 X 10 4 Pa. A pressure of 1 x 10 4 Pa may be regarded as fairly high pressure for FT-ICR measurements. Converting the pressure into a more normal value of concentration means that reactions are carried out at concentrations < 10 9M (often several orders of magnitude < 10 0 M). 

Fig. 8.1.1 Simple illustrations of a various mass spectrometers, a The triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer (top panel). The middle set of quadrupoles are part of the collision cell (CC) and do not perform mass separation. MSI and MS2 indicate the first and second quadrupole mass separation devices, respectively. The bold arrow shows the path of ions, b Ion-trap mass spectrometer (middle left). The charged sections of the ion trap are not elliptical as drawn, but rather hyperbolic. The diagram is also two-dimensional, whereas the ion trap is three-dimensional. The ion path is such that ions enter the device and are trapped until a specific voltage ejects these ions, c Time of Flight mass spectrometer with a Reflectron (middle left). Ions are separated by the time it takes to pass through the instrument. The Reflectron improves/focuses the ions, d Hybrid Tandem mass spectrometer (bottom). The diagram shows that a quadrupole instrument can be combined with a different type of mass spectrometer, forming a tandem hybrid instrument...

The most common types of MS/MS instruments available to researchers in food chemistry include triple quadrupole mass spectrometers and ion traps. Less common but commercially produced tandem mass spectrometers include magnetic sector instruments, Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometers, and quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) hybrid instruments (Table A.3A.1). Beginning in 2001, TOF-TOF tandem mass spectrometers became available from instrument manufacturers. These instruments have the potential to deliver high-resolution tandem mass spectra with high speed and should be compatible with the chip-based chromatography systems now under development. 

Superior sensitivity, efficiency, and specificity have made high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), the predominant analytical technique for characterization and quantitative analysis of metabolites (Kostiainen et al., 2003 Ma et al., 2006 Prakash et al., 2007). Ion trap, triple-quadrupole, and quadmpole time-of-flight (Q-TOF) mass spectrometers are routinely used to profile and characterize metabolites in plasma and excreta (Ma et al., 2006). The combination of scan types and features available on mass spectrometers of different design (product ion, MS", neutral loss, precursor ion scans, accurate mass measurements) allows identification and characterization of putative and unexpected metabolites with or without little prior knowledge of biotransformation pathways of a given dmg molecule. 

Besides the triple quadrupol instruments, other types of mass spectrometers might be used as well. Examples for these types of instruments are ion traps, time of flight mass spectrometers and also single quadrupol mass analyzers. Due to the characteristic and specific advantages and disadvantages of different instrument types, the overall assay performance (e.g. sensitivity, dynamic range and selectivity) may vary quite a bit from one instrument type to the other. 

Recent innovations in mass spectrometry have provided incorporation of two, three, and four analyzers into commercially available tandem instruments. In addition, different mass analyzers may be combined to form a hybrid mass spectrometer such as the quadrupole-TOF (Q-TOF). Various types of tandem mass spectrometers include the quadruopole-TOF, time-of-flight-time-of-hight (TOF-TOF), triple-quadrupole, and Orbitrap-FTICR configurations. 

R.A. YOST and C.G. ENKE build the first triple quadrupole mass spectrometer, one of the most popular types of tandem instrument [48]. 

The triple quadrupole mass spectrometer is generally considered as the most versatile of all tandem MS instruments and is useful in the initial evaluation of metabolites for a new compound. ° Several types of... 

A second type of MS instrument capable of performing a product ion scanning experiment is the ion trap mass spectrometer. The difference between this instrument and the triple quadrupole mass spectrometer is the ion trap is capable of performing numerous sequential product ion experiments on the same compound. For example, a potential metabolite is dissociated into several characteristic fragment ions in the first stage of MS/MS. Then, one of these fragment ions can be further dissociated into smaller ions. This is a second stage of MS/MS known as MS. This process can continue until the site of meta-... 

The types of tandem mass spectrometers capable of performing MS/MS experiments fall into two basic categories tandem in space and tandem in time. Tandem-in-space instruments have discrete mass analyzers for each stage of mass spectrometry examples include multisector, triple-quadru-pole, and hybrid instruments (instruments having mixed types of analyzers such as a magnetic sector and a quadrupole). Tandem-in-time instruments have only one mass analyzer where each stage of mass spectrometry takes place in the same analyzer but is separated in time via a sequence of events. Examples of this type of instrument include Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometers and quadrupole ion traps, described in Chapter 3. 

---