Mass spectrometers peak capacity

Analytical information taken from a chromatogram has almost exclusively involved either retention data (retention times, capacity factors, etc.) for peak identification or peak heights and peak areas for quantitative assessment. The width of the peak has been rarely used for analytical purposes, except occasionally to obtain approximate values for peak areas. Nevertheless, as seen from the Rate Theory, the peak width is inversely proportional to the solute diffusivity which, in turn, is a function of the solute molecular weight. It follows that for high molecular weight materials, particularly those that cannot be volatalized in the ionization source of a mass spectrometer, peak width measurement offers an approximate source of molecular weight data for very intractable solutes. 

In general, LC peak capacity can be reduced if it is counter-balanced by an increased MS peak capacity in the orthogonal mass domain. Increasing the dimensions in LC/MS separations is another option to increase overall peak capacity in a given time, but comes at a cost of increased complexity of instruments and data evaluation. In the mass domain, highly resolving mass spectrometers round out the choices. Nevertheless, every throughput optimization step should be viewed in relation to... 

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