Positive-ion analysis

The components of accelerator mass spectrometry, AMS, system are shown in Fig. 5.49 and they include ion source, injector, tandem accelerator, positive ion analysis and detection system. 

In the case of positive-ion analysis, the capillary is usually placed at a positive voltage while the counterelectrode is placed at a negative voltage (this is the case shown in Fig. 1.1). The reverse is used in the case of negative-ion analysis. In both cases, a high number of positive (or negative) charges are present on the droplet surface. 

Figure 1.5. Potential profiles usually employed in ESI/MS for positive-ion analysis.

In its simplest form, a mass spectrometer is an instmment that measures the mass-to-charge ratios ml of ions formed when a sample is ionized by one of a number of different ionization methods (1). If some of the sample molecules are singly ionized and reach the ion detector without fragmenting, then the ml ratio of these ions gives a direct measurement of the molecular weight. The first instmment for positive ray analysis was built by Thompson (2) in 1913 to show the existence of isotopic forms of the stable elements. Later, mass spectrometers were used for precision measurements of ionic mass and abundances (3,4). 

The most common ions observed as a result of electron-stimulated desorption are atomic (e. g., H, 0, E ), but molecular ions such as OH", CO", H20, and 02" can also be found in significant quantities after adsorption of H2O, CO, CO2, etc. Substrate metallic ions have never been observed, which means that ESD is not applicable to surface compositional analysis of solid materials. The most important application of ESD in the angularly resolved form ESDIAD is in determining the structure and mode of adsorption of adsorbed species. This is because the ejection of positive ions in ESD is not isotropic. Instead the ions are desorbed along specific directions only, characterized by the orientation of the molecular bonds that are broken by electron excitation. 

In insulator analysis an electron gun is also necessary to compensate for the positive ion current at the sample surface. Two types of operation are typical. 

The self-consistent field function for atoms with 2 to 36 electrons are computed with a minimum basis set of Slater-type orbitals. The orbital exponents of the atomic orbitals are optimized so as to ensure the energy minimum. The analysis of the optimized orbital exponents allows us to obtain simple and accurate rules for the 1 s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 2p, 3p, 4p and 3d electronic screening constants. These rules are compared with those proposed by Slater and reveal the need for the screening due to the outside electrons. The analysis of the screening constants (and orbital exponents) is extended to the excited states of the ground state configuration and the positive ions. 

Figure 5.6 Positive-ion electrospray spectrum obtained from the major component in the LC-MS analysis of a purified recombinant 62 kDa protein using a Cig microbore 50 X 1 mm column and a flow rate of 50 p.lmin . The starting buffer (buffer A ) was 0.1% TEA in water, while the gradient buffer (buffer B ) consisted of 0.1% TEA in acetonitrile-water (9 1 vol/vol). The running conditions consisted of 0% B for 5 min, followed by a linear gradient of 100% B for 55 min. Reprinted from J. Chromatogr., B, 685, McAtee, C. P., Zhang, Y., Yarbough, P. O., Fuerst, T. R., Stone, K. L., Samander, S. and Williams, K. R., Purification and characterization of a recombinant hepatitis E protein vaccine candidate by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry , 91-104, Copyright (1996), with permission from Elsevier Science.

Figure 5.62 Product-ion MS-MS spectra of the molecular ions from 8-hydroxy-2 -deoxyguanosine, obtained by (a) positive, and (b) negative ionization. Reprinted by permission of Elsevier Science from Comparison of negative- and positive-ion electrospray tandem mass spectrometry for the liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis of oxidized deoxynucleosides , by Hua, Y., Wainhaus, S. B., Yang, Y., Shen, L., Xiong, Y., Xu, X., Zhang, F. Bolton, J. L. and van Breemen, R. B., Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, Vol. 12, pp. 80-87, Copyright 2000 by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry.

The HPLC system used consisted of a 30 x 2 mm Luna CN column with linear gradient elution employing two mobile phases A and B (A, 90% H2O 10% acetonitrile B, 10% H2O 90% acetonittile) with both phases containing 5 mM ammonium acetate and 0.2% formic acid. The hnear gradient commenced with 50 50 A B increasing to 100% B after 1 min of the analysis this composition was maintained for 1 min before returning to 50 50 A B after 4 min. Positive-ion ionspray (pneumatically assisted electrospray) was used to obtain mass spectra, with the spectrometer operating at a resolution of 5000. 

The success of the soft ionization techniques (DCI, FAB, and LSIMS) presents several possibilities for detection of brevetoxins in complex matrices. Positive-ion DCI was used for the analysis of PbTx-3 metabolites generated in vitro by isolated rat hepatocytes (see below). Unmetabolized parent was conclusively identified and metabolites were tentatively identified, pending confirmation by alternate methods (see below). 

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