LC-MS System
Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is an analytical chemistry technique. It combines two techniques used in many scientific fields- the physical separation capabilities of liquid chromatography and the mass analysis capabilities of mass spectrometry. LC-MS systems have become an important
biotechnology lab equipment along with being a chemical analytical instrument.
Liquid Chromatography (LC) System
Liquid chromatography (LC) is a separation technique where the mobile phase is a liquid. This technique is carried out in a column or a plane. The modern liquid chromatography commonly uses very small packing particles along with high pressure which is known as high performance liquid chromatography for which
HPLC Instrument is used. HPLC is the traditional technique. There are certain differences between the HPLC and the chromatography used in LC-MS systems. For example, in the LC-MS instruments, the scale is generally smaller with regard to internal diameter of the column and also to flow rate as it scales as the square of the diameter.
Mass Spectrometry (MS) System
LC system is only one of the part of LC-MS system. The other part is the mass spectrometry (MS) system. Mass spectrometry is applied to measure the characteristics of individual molecules. The devise used for this is the
mass spectrometer which converts the molecules to ions so that they may be moved about and manipulated by external electro magnetic fields. A mass spectrometer performs three essential functions - a small sample is ionized with the help of an
ion source; the ions are sorted and separated on the basis of their mass and charge with the help of a
mass analyzer; and thus separated ions are measured and the results are displayed on a chart with the help of the
detector.
LC-MS System- Combination of Liquid Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry
The combination of liquid chromatography (LC) and mass spectrometry (MS) has become extensively applicable analytical tool. The LC-MS systems or the LC-MS instruments are usually applied for specific detection and identification of chemicals in a complex mixture. However, this is not the only application of LC-MS systems. They are used in a variety of fields including pharmacokinetics, proteomics/metabolomics, drug development, forensic toxicology etc. Different types of mass analyzers are used in LC/MS system. Some of them are Single Quadrupole, Triple Quadrupole,
Ion Trap, TOF (Time of Flight) and Quadrupole-time of flight (Q-TOF).
The combinations of liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry are used for the analysis of a wide variety of samples. Many technically different interfaces have been developed for LC-MS. However, the devices or interfaces that are likely to be the most significant devised in the coming years may be named as
Electrospray; Atmospheric-Pressure Chemical Ionization; and Particle Beam as they cover many areas of chemical analysis relative to polarity, lability and molecular weights.
Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Market & LC-MS Manufacturers
As chromatography still continues to dominate the analytical instrument industry and also because advanced techniques as LC/MS and LC/MS/MS are growing at a fast rate, the LC-MS instrument market is expected to boom. As the typical HPLC instruments cannot be directly coupled with MS, and many other practical hinderances of flow rates, MS ionization modes, research on interfacing HPLC with MS began long back in early 1970s. However, it was not until the commercialization of Atmospheric Pressure Ionization (API) sources in 1987 that LC-MS system actually got popular. Other LC- MS interfaces like the ones based on particle-beam, continuous-flow fast atom bombardment, and thermospray are still in use but API-based interfaces are the most popular LC-MS systems of the modern day.
API sources include Electrospray Ionization (ESI) as well as atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI). In ESI, a high voltage is used to generate drop lets containing multiply charged ions. In APCI, the LC column effluent is nebulized into a heated tube, which vaporizes almost all of the solvent. The LC-MS manufacturers these days make such LC/MS instruments that have the ability to switch between ESI and APCI.
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