High-Performance LC Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometers

At the 2012 Japan Analytical Scientific Instruments Show (JASIS), Bruker (USA) launched two game-changing LC-triple quadrupole (LC-TQ) mass spectrometers, the high-performance EVOQ Qube and the ultra-high sensitivity EVOQ Elite, which are setting new standards for analytical performance and quantitative robustness. As with Bruker’s very successful SCION GC-TQ platform, introduced in 2011, the EVOQ series is targeted at LC-TQ performance leadership and delivers major advances in robustness, ease of method developments and productivity.

The EVOQ LC-TQ systems introduced today incorporate Bruker’s new Advance Ultra-High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC) systems. In addition, the EVOQ platform features several major innovations: The industry’s first Vacuum-Insulated Probe (VIP) heated electrospray technology preserves and ionises thermally fragile molecules with outstanding sensitivity; The Active Exhaust atmospheric pressure ionisation source with a robust orifice vacuum interface significantly enhances quantitative robustness for difficult samples; The novel, ‘flat-tuning’, proprietary Interlaced Quadrupole Dual Funnel (IQ-DF™) maximises sensitivity and Novel PACERTM software enables ‘exception based data-review’, a revolutionary feature that significantly reduces the error rate for quantitative analysis.

Bruker’s patented lens-free triple-quad mass filter design, which enhances MRM performance, is standard on all EVOQ systems, making the EVOQ LC-TQ inherently easier to use and maintain. Other high-performance TQ features include Bruker’s unique Compound Based Scanning (CBS) technology, the novel VIP heated-ESI and APCI ion sources, fast 14,000 amu/sec scan speed and 25 milliseconds positive/negative ion switching, all for leading-edge TQ performance and analytical power.

Jonathan McNally, EVOQ Product Manager, said: “Our intention was to make the EVOQ LC-TQ very intuitive to use, whether the users are analysing pesticides in water using our new Advance UHPLC with on-line extraction (OLE) capability for high volume injections, or quantifying peptides in plasma. Our goal is to allow the user to focus on solving the analytical problem, and not be distracted by the instrument parameter operation. The EVOQ greatly simplifies MRM-based quantitation with Bruker’s unique Compound Based Scanning (CBS), which makes MRM methods development trivial, and MS/MS as easy to use and deploy as single quadrupole mass spectrometry.”

The Advance HPLC, UHPLC, and the UHPLC-OLE products offer ultra-low dead-volume which enables excellent reproducibility at analytical flow-rates, an integrated column-oven, and bench-space savings. Paired with the industry workhorse CTC auto-sampler, the Advance LC portfolio delivers precision and accuracy required for sustained, high-sensitivity LC-MRM quantitative analysis.