Join us on the jour­ney of mass spec­tro­me­try (MS) as a ner­dy che­mis­try ana­ly­sis tech­no­lo­gy to an as­sem­bly line ap­pli­ca­ti­on. Dis­co­ver in our ar­tic­le the po­ten­ti­al of mass spec­tro­me­try, what Ap­pli­ed Mar­kets ent­ail, and the role Plas­mi­on plays in ad­van­cing MS.

Mass spec­tro­me­try as an ana­ly­ti­cal me­thod is so cap­ti­vat­ing that it has gar­ne­red a glo­bal fan base. Espe­ci­al­ly re­se­ar­chers en­ga­ged in ana­ly­ti­cal che­mis­try un­der­stand its im­mense po­ten­ti­al. Af­ter all, how in­tri­guing is it to in­ves­ti­ga­te ob­jects or sub­s­tances down to their mole­cu­lar com­pon­ents? Es­sen­ti­al­ly, it’s si­mi­lar to re­a­ding the in­gre­di­ents of food, but ap­pli­ca­ble to a wide ran­ge of so­lids, li­quids, and ga­ses. Re­se­arch con­ti­nu­al­ly grapp­les with new chal­lenges to un­co­ver no­vel mole­cu­les and ven­ture into un­char­ted re­alms with this tech­no­lo­gy.

Ho­we­ver, mass spec­tro­me­try has thus far re­main­ed pre­do­mi­nant­ly a tech­no­lo­gy used in re­se­arch or well-equip­ped la­bo­ra­to­ries. The pri­ma­ry re­asons, asi­de from equip­ment and per­son­nel cos­ts, re­vol­ve around the du­ra­ti­on of tests. While the re­sults are in­cre­di­bly pre­cise, samples need tho­rough pre­pa­ra­ti­on and of­ten re­qui­re chro­ma­to­gra­phy se­pa­ra­ti­on to yield in­ter­pr­e­ta­ble out­co­mes. The­se cir­cum­s­tances curr­ent­ly hin­der MS from be­co­ming a stan­dard in fields de­man­ding ra­pid re­sults and ease of use. It is curr­ent­ly un­sui­ta­ble for con­vey­or belt ap­pli­ca­ti­ons or on-site use. Nevert­hel­ess, count­less other in­dus­tries could be­ne­fit from the most powerful che­mi­cal ana­ly­sis tech­ni­que if only its ap­pli­ca­ti­on were sim­pli­fied.

As men­tio­ned in one of our re­cent ar­tic­les, the po­ten­ti­al for Di­rect-MS is in­cre­di­bly vast. Ima­gi­ne, for in­s­tance, an en­vi­ron­men­tal ser­vices com­pa­ny re­spon­si­ble for the pro­per dis­po­sal of con­s­truc­tion de­bris. With real-time ana­ly­sis pro­vi­ded by MS, trucks trans­port­ing de­bris from a con­s­truc­tion site to the fa­ci­li­ty could be in­spec­ted for con­ta­mi­na­ti­ons like mi­ne­ral oil hy­dro­car­bons di­rect­ly at the con­tai­ner. Food-pro­du­cing fa­ci­li­ties could as­sess pack­a­ging in­te­gri­ty on a con­vey­or belt. Me­di­cal prac­ti­ces could swift­ly dia­gno­se and tre­at spe­ci­fic ill­nesses th­rough breath ana­ly­sis. Phar­maceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies could scru­ti­ni­ze me­di­ca­ti­on in­gre­di­ents for de­fects, not just spo­ra­di­cal­ly, but as a re­gu­lar prac­ti­ce. All the­se sec­tors, ter­med Ap­pli­ed Mar­kets in con­trast to re­se­arch, will see their share ne­ar­ly dou­ble by 2030, ac­cor­ding to re­cent re­se­arch.

Plasmion’s vi­si­on is to make MS ap­pli­ca­ti­ons simp­le and ac­ces­si­ble to ever­yo­ne, par­ti­cu­lar­ly be­ne­fiting Ap­pli­ed Mar­kets. Rou­ti­ne la­bo­ra­to­ries al­re­a­dy em­ploy­ing MS can ex­tra­ct more from their tech­no­lo­gy with SICRIT®: quicker tests and im­pro­ved, more ea­si­ly in­ter­pr­e­ta­ble re­sults, pri­ma­ri­ly re­du­cing cos­ts re­la­ted to tech­no­lo­gy and per­son­nel. Ad­di­tio­nal­ly, the ‚Lab-in-a-box‘ so­lu­ti­on Ha­Voc® aims to make MS ap­pli­ca­ble in in­dus­tri­al set­tings, ther­eby ta­king a si­gni­fi­cant step for­ward in qua­li­ty assu­rance, be it in food, wa­ter, or air. We work pas­sio­na­te­ly and ti­re­less­ly every day to make mass spec­tro­me­try ac­ces­si­ble to a broad au­di­ence.