Mass Spectrometry
The Mass Spectrometry Facility in the Department of Chemistry offers first-rate chemical analysis. Researchers use the facility for a variety of needs, from investigating the structure of key intermediates to obtaining publication-quality spectra. Once students and postdoctoral researchers receive training on an instrument they may run their own samples on an as-needed basis, with expert on-site assistance readily available. Senior spectroscopist, Dr. John Eng, handles samples submitted by researchers from outside the department.
All mass spectrometers are open for walk-up use 24-hours a day. Training for each instrument may be requested via a sign-up sheet next to the instrument or by contacting Dr. Eng, and typically takes about 30 to 45 minutes. There are nine mass spectrometers available in Room B14 of Frick Laboratories:
Agilent 6230 Accurate-Mass Time-of-Flight LC/MS 1260LC system: Instrument #1 is setup with positive ionization mode LC solvents. Using this “Walk-up” high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometer, synthetic chemists can routinely obtain accurate, sub ppm mass measurements for the complete characterization of their products for publication. The latest version of “Mass Hunter” software is available on this system.
Agilent 6230 Accurate-Mass Time-of-Flight LC/MS 1260LC system: Instrument #2 is setup with negative ionization mode LC solvents. This second of two “Walk-up” high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometers, is optimized with negative mode LC solvents for the analysis of Oligonucleotides, DNA and associated modifications. Best for molecule that ionize well in the negative ESI mode.
Agilent 6495C LC Triple Quad (QQQ) Instrument 1290LC system: This LC-QQQ instrument used mainly for metabolomics. Optimized for high sensitivity with a large dynamic range for small molecule and peptide quantitation
Agilent 6546 LC-QTOF 1290 LC system: High resolution ESI-Q-TOF instrument mainly use for MS/MS analysis. Optimized with high acquisition speed and dynamic range for proteomics and metabolomics.
Agilent 6545 XT LC-QTOF 1290 LC system: High resolution ESI-Q-TOF instrument. Optimized for peptide mapping and finding PTMs; this instrument is the higher sensitivity of the two QTOF instruments available also configurable for small molecule screening with good isotope fidelity and accurate mass measurements.
The following are Gas-Liquid chromatography MS instruments available in the Core MS Facility:
Agilent 5975C MSD-7890 GC for GC-MS Analysis: This reliable gas chromatography mass spectrometer vaporizes chemical samples and provides additional structural information from fragment masses of the parent ion. An NIST library search software is available on all the GC-MS instruments.
Agilent 5977 MSD-8890 GC for GC-MS Analysis: Unit Mass resolution GC-MS System for identification of organic compounds with EI+ ionization. Additional head-space accessories available on this instrument.
Agilent 7250 GC QTOF with 8890 GC: Provides high resolution GC-MS data and the attached 8890 GC is equipped with multi-GC column capabilities. Also the 7250 QTOF instrument has stable electronic control abilities, to lower the EI+ ionization voltage from the typical 70eV down to 5 eV ; allowing the ability to observe parent ions of sensitive molecules such as primary alcohols. Classical appearance potential studies can easily be facilitate by a software sequence.
Agilent 7200 GC QTOF with 7890C GC: Provides high resolution GC-MS data and the attached 7890 GC is equipped with 2D GC column capabilities. It is part of Professor John T. Groves’ instrument cluster but researchers can make arrangements with the facility and the Groves lab to gain access to this machine.
Dr. Eng can be reached through his email at: [email protected]