Di­rect MS

Ana­ly­sis

The SICRIT® Ion Source en­ables high­ly sen­si­ti­ve, chro­ma­to­gra­phy-free di­rect mass spec­tro­me­try (MS) ana­ly­sis. No sam­ple pre­pa­ra­ti­on is re­qui­red. Sim­ply place the sam­ple in front of the MS and al­low the va­cu­um to draw the gas­eous mole­cu­les di­rect­ly into the source.

Ex­em­pla­ry
Ana­ly­sis
Re­sults

In­stanta­neous re­sults wi­t­hout sam­ple pre­pa­ra­ti­on for tar­ge­ted or non-tar­ge­ted scree­ning of VOC emis­si­ons.

Di­rect MS ana­ly­sis by „snif­fing“ is a simp­le yet powerful tech­ni­que that al­lows us to ob­tain clean, con­clu­si­ve MS1 spec­tra, wi­t­hout the need for any mo­du­le or chro­ma­to­gra­phy. Just the source and your sam­ple. We show here the sim­pli­ci­ty of using this tech­ni­que to “sniff” ex­plo­si­ves, whe­re we can pro­vi­de an im­me­dia­te MS1 con­tai­ning all the same in­for­ma­ti­on as con­ven­tio­nal tech­ni­ques, chro­ma­to­gra­phy-free and wi­t­hout any sam­ple prep.

Full MS spectra of TATP (3 ng absolute) in positive mode, obtained on LTQ Orbitrap XL (Thermo Fisher) in a sniffing direct ms analysis
Image shows the graph of a direct ms analysis, a PCA with the two different types of oils from two geographical origins, plotted in the PC1 & PC2

Not only is our tech­ni­que high­ly sen­si­ti­ve, com­pa­ra­ble to other SICRIT® me­thods (such as the De­sorp­ti­on Mo­du­le or the SFC/LC Mo­du­le), but it also of­fers strong re­pro­du­ci­bi­li­ty. With this ap­proach, we can me­a­su­re dif­fe­ren­ces not only bet­ween two di­stinct es­sen­ti­al oils but also bet­ween the same oils across mul­ti­ple brands. The re­pro­du­ci­bi­li­ty wi­thin re­pli­ca­tes is clear, as is the sen­si­ti­vi­ty of the tech­ni­que in com­pa­ring iden­ti­cal es­sen­ti­al oils from dif­fe­rent geo­gra­phic re­gi­ons and ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers. This en­ables re­lia­ble pro­fi­le ana­ly­sis and qua­li­ty con­trol with both high sen­si­ti­vi­ty and re­pro­du­ci­bi­li­ty.

With this ap­proach of di­rect MS ana­ly­sis, we can per­form ra­pid con­ta­mi­nant ana­ly­sis sim­ply by pla­cing the sam­ple in front of the MS in­let. In this ex­am­p­le, we ex­ami­ne how the vo­la­ti­le com­pounds in tea lea­ves can be­co­me con­ta­mi­na­ted by en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­lut­ants pre­sent in tea bags, lea­ding to po­ten­ti­al lea­ching into the con­su­ma­ble pro­duct.

Graph of Sniffing direct MS analysis showing a tea and a tea bag MS1 Spectra that reveals the tea and the phthalate profile

Know­ledge Base

Cof­fee Aro­ma Pro­fil­ing – Di­rect SICRIT® HR-MS Ana­ly­sis
This App Note de­mons­tra­tes how SICRIT® HR-MS en­ables real-time, di­rect aro­ma pro­fil­ing of cof­fee be­ans wi­t­hout sam­ple pre­pa­ra­ti­on. The ap­proach cap­tures hundreds of vo­la­ti­le com­pounds in se­conds, sup­port­ing roas­ting op­ti­miza­ti­on, qua­li­ty con­trol, and aro­ma-dri­ven pro­duct de­ve­lo­p­ment.

Phtha­la­tes: Bet­ween Ne­ces­si­ty, Risk, and In­no­va­ti­on
This ar­tic­le ex­plains what phtha­la­tes are, why they are used, their risks, and how new tech­no­lo­gies like SICRIT® may im­pro­ve ana­ly­sis.

Dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween DART and SICRIT® in Mass Spec­tro­me­try
This ar­tic­le ex­plains the core dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween both am­bi­ent io­niza­ti­on so­lu­ti­ons, high­light­ing whe­re each fits into mo­dern lab work­flows, and why SICRIT® has be­co­me the more fle­xi­ble, re­pro­du­ci­b­le, and fu­­tu­re-re­a­­dy so­lu­ti­on for many ap­pli­ca­ti­ons.

Dis­co­ver our Pro­ducts

Find the per­fect so­lu­ti­on for your use case, with Plasmion’s ad­van­ced tech­no­lo­gy and ex­per­ti­se in che­mi­cal ana­ly­sis for re­se­arch or in­dus­try.