A miniature mass spectrometer for liquid chromatography applications

Abstract

A miniature mass spectrometer capable of detecting analytes eluting from a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system is described and demonstrated for the first time. The entire instrument, including all pumps and the computer, is contained within a single enclosure that may be conveniently accommodated at the base of the HPLC stack. The microspray ion source, vacuum interface, ion guide, and quadrupole ion filter are all microengineered. These components are fabricated in batches using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) techniques and considered to be consumables. When coupled to a standard HPLC system using an integrated passive split, the limit of detection for reserpine while scanning the full mass range is 5 ng on-column (1 pg of which is passed to the microspray). The mass range is m/z 100-800, and each spectrum is typically acquired at a rate of 1 scan per second.

Miniature and Fieldable Mass Spectrometers: Recent Advances

“…The 3500 101 and 4000 215 MiD benchtop instruments from Microsaic Systems couple external ionization ( e.g. ESI) with quadrupole mass filters.…”

A Microelectromechanical Systems-Enabled, Miniature Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer

“…The availability of compact, lightweight pumps has been key to the development of miniature mass spectrometers [22,33,34,39]. However, since the sensitivity obtained using atmospheric pressure ionization is set by the amount of gas and entrained ions that can be drawn into vacuum, the limits of detection must reflect their small size.…”

“…Complex structures can be built-up by etching both sides of the wafer, growing insulating oxide layers, selective metalization, and anodic bonding to glass wafers. As the design, fabrication, and performance characteristics of the MEMS components used here have been described in detail elsewhere [32,33,40,41], only a brief overview is given.…”

On‐line reaction monitoring by mass spectrometry, modern approaches for the analysis of chemical reactions

“…It is likely that the capability of miniaturized mass spectrometers will continue to be developed, enabling even more in‐depth mass spectrometry experiments (tandem mass spectrometry for structural characterization and quantitation) to be carried out on dynamic processes in real time. Such potential has been demonstrated by researchers at Microsaic Systems in their publication describing a miniature triple quadruple mass spectrometer, along with other ground breaking examples of miniaturization of mass spectrometers in a variety of application areas …”