The Ultimate in Benchtop GC/MS/MS
GC/MS is a well-established technique that can be found in a wide variety of laboratories including environmental, food and beverage, forensic and toxicology. Many of the analyses carried out in these areas involve quantification of target analytes in complex matrices such as fruits, vegetables, animal products, urine and plasma. In addition, many of the analyses are regulated, dictating strict detection and confirmation criteria.
The superior quantitative performance of tandem quadrupole GC/MS/MS has been long recognized, but the price has been out of the reach of many laboratories that would benefit from this technology. With the introduction of the Quattro micro GC, based on the proven tandem quadrupole technology of the Waters Quattro micro API, this technology is now within the range of the majority of laboratories.
The Solution
The Quattro micro GC is a tandem quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with dedicated electron impact (EI) and chemical ionisation (CI+/CI-) sources. Samples can be introduced via gas chromatography (GC/MS/MS), direct insertion probe (DIP) or desorption chemical ionisation (DCI) probes. It is a powerful mass spectrometry tool for quantitative trace analysis.
The Quattro micro GC offers:
- Complete range of automated real time MS/MS experiments: Multiple Reaction Monitoring, Product Ion, Precursor Ion and Neutral Loss/Gain.
- >5 orders of linear dynamic range
- Dedicated Electron Impact (EI) and low temperature positive and negative Chemical Ionisation (CI+/-) sources with source isolation valve for rapid source exchange.
- Hexapole collision cell for enhanced ion containment and transmission
- Mass-flow controlled CI reagent gas
- Low noise/high gain long-life photomultiplier detector
- MassLynx™ 4.0 …the market leading Targeted Mass-Informatics™ platform
- State-of-the-art vacuum system featuring air cooled split-flow turbomolecular pump
- Integrated GC (Agilent 6890) and autosampler (Agilent 7683, CTCGC-Pal or CombiPal) control.
Tandem Quadrupole GC/MS/MS
Tandem quadrupoles use two stages of mass analysis– one to pre-select an ion (the precursor ion) and the second to analyze fragments (product ions) induced by collision with an inert gas in the collision cell.
Using a tandem quadrupole MS/MS system, Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) is the most sensitive, selective and specific technique for quantification and involves the monitoring of compound-specific precursor to product ion transitions. This is especially advantageous when quantifying low levels of target compounds in the presence of a high level of background from sample matrix or co-extractives. MRM is also highly sensitive, due to the elimination of background chemical noise.
The Quattro micro GC also offers Product Ion Scanning to obtain high-quality MS/MS spectra; Precursor Ion Scanning to locate and identify particular classes of compound of similar structure or containing a common moiety; and Neutral Loss (or Gain) to identify all precursor ions that lose (or gain) a specific neutral species during the fragmentation process.
