UHPLC-HRMS (qOrbitrap)
The ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry system (UHPLC-HRMS) allows the determination of organic compounds. The UHPLC system consists of an UltiMate 3000 HPLC instrument (Thermo Scientifc™) equipped with an automated autosampler, a column oven and a quaternary pump. The chromatograph is coupled through a switching valve to the Thermo Scientific™ Q Exactive™ Focus benchtop that combines quadrupole precursor ion selection and a high-resolution accurate-mass (HR/AM) Orbitrap mass analyzer to deliver mass accuracy, sensitivity and fast polarity switching while maintaining sensitivity compared to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. The high-resolution mass spectrometer is equipped with both a heated electrospray ion source (H-ESI) to improve the ionization of polar compounds and an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) source to cover low- and mid-polar compounds, thus extending the coverage of the chemical space. Additionally, the mass spectrometer provides different acquisition modes (fullscan, DDA, DIA, PRM, etc.) allowing the application of target, suspect and non-target approaches. Data acquisition is done with the XCaliburTM software whereas data processing is carried out with TraceFinderTM (for target approaches) and Compound DiscovererTM (for suspect and non-target approaches).