The use of chromatography and online structure

The use of chromatography and online structure elucidation using spectroscopy 

The great advantage of the technique is that it provides molecular weight information and on some instraments stmctural fragments and empirical formulae on line, without the need for time-consuming isolation, in a large number of cases. 

In the early days of the technique, from the early 1970s to around 1990, LC-MS was very much in the realm of the dedicated mass spectroscopist it was a very difficult technique to use, uimeUable, insensitive and, to many, of 

It was not until the introduction of Thermospray Ionisation in the 1980s that a system was available that enabled sufficiently reliable LC-MS instruments to be manufactured [6]. At this point the HPLC community began to realise this was a technique that might just answer their wish for a much needed universal detector. Thermospray ionisation never quite gave the degree of reliability, nor the sensitivity, required to fulfil this dream, but it did show that LC-MS was a very valuable technique to have available. The impetus for further development was therefore present. 

Fenn published work in 1989 [7-9] showing ionisation of large molecules by electrospray ionisation (ESI). Fenn built on the early work of Malcolm Dole [10] but Fenn used a counter current gas to assist with desolvation of the droplets and aid the formation of the ions. In the early 1990s, experiments with atmospheric pressure ionisation (API) showed promise and in a short space of time the first commercial systems utilising the new techniques of ESI [11] and Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionisation (APCI) began to appear on analysts benches. The sensitive, reliable and easily operated LC-MS system had arrived. 

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