White Paper: Advanced Materials In Mass Spectrometry Instruments

By Morgan Technical Ceramics

The global market for mass spectrometry, already surpassing $3 billion, is expected to grow by 8 percent a year through the end of the decade according to Spectroscopy Magazine and Instrument Business Outlook. The growth is fueled by continual advancements in technology that have positioned mass spectrometry as a primary detection method in drug discovery and development, in pharmaceutical QA/QC, and in traditional mass spectrometry applications such as isotope dating and tracking in the geosciences and trace gas analysis for helium-based leak detection. The evolving capability of measuring relative abundance has opened up considerable opportunities in the expanding field of quantitative proteomics.

Liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (LC/MS), the largest segment of the hyphenated mass spectrometry market, has experienced especially rapid technological advancement and market growth. For the past two decades, LC/MS has been dramatically transformed by the advent of electrospray ionization (ESI) for which John Bennett Fenn received the 2002 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The introduction of multimode ionization source devices significantly increased analysis throughput, by offering both positive and negative ionization modes and by combining simultaneous ESI and atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization (APCI). Major performance enhancements have also been made inside the mass analyzer, with improvements to triple quadrupole and ion trap technology.

These advanced materials serve important functions within all four of the fundamental components of a mass spectrometer: the sample introduction chamber, the ion source, the mass analyzer (also called a mass filter or mass separator) and the detector.