Mass spectrometers monitoring

A sample is diluted in an appropriate volume of internal standard stock solution and an aliquot of the sample is injected into a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer monitoring m/e 349 and 351. The peak areas of the TPTM and internal standard are integrated and expressed as the ratio of TPTM -Internal Standard and the ratio of those areas respectively are used to construct a standard curve. The amount of TPTM present is then calculated from the standard curve. 

Figure 6 Detection ofthe 8-oxoGua/formylamine tandem lesions in isolated DNA exposed to gamma radiation in aerated aqueous solution. DNA was digested by a mild enzymatic treatment in order to release the lesions without cleavage of the phosphodiester bond. The sample was then injected onto a reverse phase HPLC column. The detection was provided by a mass spectrometer monitoring the main fragmentation ofthe two tandem base lesions.

Mass spectrometer monitored for natural monitored for labeled... 

In the modem scanning mass spectrometer, it is more convenient that ions arrive at a single point for monitoring (collection), so r (or r ) is kept constant. Therefore, B or V must be varied to bring all ions to the same focus viz., one of the relationships in Equation 24.5 must apply ... 

A second use of arrays arises in the detection of trace components of material introduced into a mass spectrometer. For such very small quantities, it may well be that, by the time a scan has been carried out by a mass spectrometer with a point ion collector, the tiny amount of substance may have disappeared before the scan has been completed. An array collector overcomes this problem. Often, the problem of detecting trace amounts of a substance using a point ion collector is overcome by measuring not the whole mass spectrum but only one characteristic m/z value (single ion monitoring or single ion detection). However, unlike array detection, this single-ion detection method does not provide the whole spectrum, and an identification based on only one m/z value may well be open to misinterpretation and error. 

Selected-ion monitoring (SIM). Describes the operation of a mass spectrometer in which the ion currents at one (or several) selected m/z values are recorded, rather than the entire mass spectrum. The use of the terms multiple-ion detection (MID), multiple-ion (peak) monitoring (MPM), and mass fragmentography are not recommended. 

Quantitative mass spectrometry, also used for pharmaceutical appHcations, involves the use of isotopicaHy labeled internal standards for method calibration and the calculation of percent recoveries (9). Maximum sensitivity is obtained when the mass spectrometer is set to monitor only a few ions, which are characteristic of the target compounds to be quantified, a procedure known as the selected ion monitoring mode (sim). When chlorinated species are to be detected, then two ions from the isotopic envelope can be monitored, and confirmation of the target compound can be based not only on the gc retention time and the mass, but on the ratio of the two ion abundances being close to the theoretically expected value. The spectrometer cycles through the ions in the shortest possible time. This avoids compromising the chromatographic resolution of the gc, because even after extraction the sample contains many compounds in addition to the analyte. To increase sensitivity, some methods use sample concentration techniques. 

High-pressure pumps operating at up to 6000 psi are required to force solvent through a tightly packed HPLC column, and electronic detectors are used to monitor the appearance of material eluting from the column. Alternatively, the column can be interfaced to a mass spectrometer to determine the mass spectrum of every substance as it elutes. Figure 12.18 shows the results of HPLC analysis of a mixture of 10 fat-soluble vitamins on 5 jam silica spheres with acetonitrile as solvent. 

At this point, the solution containing the component to be measured (Ax) also contains any other compounds from the original matrix that are soluble in the solvent used in the analysis. For the analysis to be accurate, other components in the matrix cannot interfere by eluting at the same retention time as the components to be measured. For accurate MS analyses, the matrix component must not interfere with production of the ions being measured for either the internal standard or the component to be measured. In some cases, to eliminate interferences, it may be necessary to increase the resolution of the mass spectrometer by narrowing the mass window being monitored. Alternatively, MS/MS can be used to avoid chemical interference (see Chapter 1). 

The mass spectrometer sampling capillary or the dispersive infra-red analyzers used for continuous analysis and monitoring of the gas phase composition are situated between the reactor and the sampling valve, as close to the reactor as possible, in order to avoid any delay in the recording of changes in the composition of reactants or products. This delay should be taken into account when plotting simultaneously the time dependence of catalyst potential or current and gas phase concentration of the reactants or products. 

In the technique developed by Willard Libby in Chicago in the late 1940s, the proportion of carbon-14 in a sample is determined by monitoring the (1 radiation from C02 obtained by burning the sample. This procedure is illustrated in Example 17.4. In the modern version of the technique, which requires only a few milligrams of sample, the carbon atoms are converted into C ions by bombardment of the sample with cesium atoms. The C ions are then accelerated with electric fields, and the carbon isotopes are separated and counted with a mass spectrometer (Fig. 17.19). 

Like the UV detector, the mass spectrometer may be employed as either a general detector, when full-scan mass spectra are acquired, or as a specific detector, when selected-ion monitoring (see Section 3.5.2.1) or tandem mass spectrometry (MS-MS) (see Section 3.4.2) are being used. 

---