TWO-DIMENSIONAL TANDEM MASS SPECTROMETRY: INSTRUMENTATION AND APPLICATION

Mass spectrometry has become the premium chemical identification method. The next advancement for mass spectrometry is the widespread use of mass spectrometers for on-site chemical/biological identification. Ion trap mass spectrometers have emerged as powerful on-site analytical platforms, in spite of limited mass resolution, due to their compatibility with ambient ionization methods and ready implementation of tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). However, conventionally operated ion traps are inefficient in accessing the entire tandem mass spectrometry dataspace. By operating the ion trap at a constant trapping voltage, more efficient tandem mass spectrometry scan modes are accessible. The most efficient is to acquire the entire tandem mass spectrometry data space and this work demonstrates three different methods of acquiring this data domain. These methods acquire the data in under a second and the best performing method was implemented in a miniature mass spectrometer without performance decrease. The impact of this device is most powerful when analysis requires the entire ionized sample be considered to determine the identity of the sample. This was shown to be useful for monitoring the lipid metabolism in a model microorganism.