LC/MS Flashcards
What is mass spectrometry?
Separation of ions by mass to charge ratio, the basis of mass spectrometry is the production of ions that are subsequently separated or filtered according to their mass to charge (m/z) ratio and detected. The resulting mass spectrum is a plot of the (relative) abundance of the produced ions as a function of the m/z ratio
Where does the molecular ion peak occur?
Molecular ion mass + 1
Sequence of LC/MS?
LC (attached to central processing unit) Interface Ions source Mass analyser (attached to central processing unit) Detector
What does the interface do?
Must convert dissolved analyte into gas phase ions - how to transfer liquid to gas mobile phase gas reduce pressure and ionise
What are the LC/MS results?
Chromatograms
Mass spectra
Mass chromatograms
What is LC?
Separation of analytes by interactions with stationary phase
What is MS?
Separation of ions by mass to charge ratio
How to adapt HPLC method to LC/MS?
Increasing volatility of the buffer
Changing the pH
Adding adducts such as Na+
What are the requirements for the solvent in LC/MS?
Suitable viscosity, conductivity, surface tension and polarity
pH of the solvent eg the production of positive ions is favoured at acidic pH
What conversion processes are required for interfacing liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry?
State of matter –> Gas phase (evaporation)
Pressure –> High vacuum (pressure reduction)
Charge state –> Ionic (ionisation)
In charge state introduce charge on molecule - in reversed phase chromatography needs to introduce charge
Ionisation techniques?
Electrospray ionisation (ESI)
Atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation (APCI)
Matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation (MALDI)
Mass analysers?
Quadrupole Q
Quadrupole ion trap IT
Time of flight TOF
Tandem mass analysers?
Triple quadrupole QqQ
Quadrupole time of flight QTOF
What is ESI?
ESI is a soft ionisation technique that accomplishes the transfer of ions from solution to the gas (want to charge molecules but not fragment it, electron impact however fragments the molecule)
What happens in ESI?
Electrospray is produced by applying a strong electric field to a liquid passing through a capillary tube at a low flow, desolation by gas flow (N2) or gentle capillary heating (100-300 degrees C)
What are problems with ESI?
Prone to many issues high voltage high temperature to allow salvation of gas nitrogen pushes gas into mass analyser
What are the applications of ESI?
Ionic compounds that are intrinsically charged in solution
Neutral/polar compounds that may be protonated (for positive ion mass spectra) or deprotonated (for negative ion mass spectra) under the solution conditions employed eg appropriate pH
Non polar compounds that undergo oxidation (positive ion mass spectra) or reduction (negative mass spectra) at the electrospray capillary
What is the electrospray process susceptible to?
Competition and suppression effects (might not see charge on the molecule of interest), all polar/ionic species in the solution being sprayed will be potentially ionised
Advantages of ESI?
ESI is a soft technique which usually enables the molecule weight of the analyte under study to be determined
Ionisation occurs directly from solution and consequently allows ionic and thermally labile compounds to be studied
Virtually any ion in solution is amenable to analyse with psi including large macromolecules, quaternary salts etc
The production of multiple charge species especially proteins extends the effective range of a mass analyser to megadaltons
Disadvantages of ESI?
ESI is not applicable to non polar or low polarity compounds
Suppression effects may be observed and the direct analysis of mixtures is not always possible
ESI is a soft ionisation technique producing intact species and structural information might not be available - necessity to use cone voltage fragmentation of MS-MS
The mass spectrum produced from an analyte in terms of the m/z range of the ions obsessed and their reactive intensities depends on a number of factors and spectra obtained using different experimental conditions may therefore differ considerably in appearance
Five main characterises of an analyser?
Mass limit Transmission Resolving power Scan speed Mass accuracy
What is the mass limit?
Determines the highest value of m/z ratio that can be measured - important for biomolecule analysis (how high we can go in mass to charge ratio, only need to worry about this for larger molecules eg proteins)