Abstract
A miniature mass spectrometer with continuous atmospheric pressure interface (CAPI) developed previously in our lab has proved to have high stability and rapid analysis speed. With the aim of achieving smaller size, better performance and easier maintenance, in this study, an upgraded miniature mass spectrometer with CAPI was developed, in which all components were optimized and redesigned into a packaged unit. Using a more powerful pumping system, better analytical performances were obtained for this system. The miniature mass spectrometer has the capability to perform tandem mass spectrometry, and could be coupled with ambient ionization sources for analysis of different samples. Good stability (signal relative standard deviation, RSD < 5%), high sensitivity (limit of detection, LOD 10 ng/mL), better than unit mass resolution, and a broad mass range (from 150 Da to 2000 Da) were obtained. Integrated with a tablet computer for system control, the miniature mass spectrometer has dimensions of 38 cm × 23 cm × 34 cm (length × width × height), and is 13 kg in total weight. The whole system is powered by an adapter with a power consumption of 200 watts in total.
Highlights
Owing to its high sensitivity, high specificity, rapid response, and applicability to a wide range of chemical compounds, mass spectrometry (MS) has become a powerful technique for chemical and biological analysis
Different kinds of miniature mass spectrometers have been developed, mainly using an ion trap as the mass analyzer, which is connected with different atmospheric pressure interfaces (APIs), including the membrane inlet (MI) [14,15,16,17], discontinuous atmospheric pressure interface (DAPI) [10,18,19], and continuous atmospheric pressure interface (CAPI) [20,21]
By introducing ions produced in atmosphere into the vacuum chamber in a pulsed way, miniature mass spectrometers with DAPI could analyze both volatile and nonvolatile samples when coupling with the corresponding ionization sources [22,23,24,25,26,27]
Summary
Owing to its high sensitivity, high specificity, rapid response, and applicability to a wide range of chemical compounds, mass spectrometry (MS) has become a powerful technique for chemical and biological analysis. By introducing ions produced in atmosphere into the vacuum chamber in a pulsed way, miniature mass spectrometers with DAPI could analyze both volatile and nonvolatile samples when coupling with the corresponding ionization sources [22,23,24,25,26,27]. Following the development of mini MS with CAPI, an in-vacuum plasma ionization source [28] and miniature ion funnel [29] were developed to enhance the analytical performance for in situ applications. With these techniques, for instance, limits of detection (LODs) of 10 ppbv and 50 ng/mL were obtained for both volatile and nonvolatile samples, respectively.
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