Agilent Introduces TOF Mass Spectrometer
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Agilent Technologies Inc. has announced the availability of its bench-top time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometer, the Agilent 6210 TOF. The instrument is part of the Agilent 6000 Series mass spectrometry product line.
The TOF is designed to provide resolving power and mass accuracy (less than 3 ppm) with sensitivity (low picogram), scanning time (20-40 spectra/sec) and dynamic range (3.5 decades).
TOF mass spectrometry is used to analyze and characterize complex mixtures by accurately determining the mass of individual components.
It is commonly used in pharmaceutical, food safety and environmental analysis, and has become an important tool for the study of proteins, glycans (sugars that are attached to proteins) and metabolites in drug discovery and development and disease research.
Major changes to Agilent’s upgraded TOF include fast polarity switching with accurate mass and compatibility with Agilent’s proprietary multimode ion source, a technology that facilitates fewer experimental runs.
Agilent claims that, the 6210 TOF can perform one positive and one negative scan in one second, while maintaining 10 ppm or better accurate mass.
It can acquire 20 full scan spectra per second for analyses of larger molecules (m/z 100-3,000) and 40 per second for analyses of small molecules (m/z 100-1000), keeping pace with the Agilent 1200 Rapid Resolution system.
Together, these capabilities allow researchers to identify more compounds - from chemical impurities to new drug candidates.
The software designed for the 6210 TOF allows for fast set-up, control, data acquisition and analysis. The addition of Agilent’s LC/MS Easy Access software makes this technology accessible to any scientist.
For application-specific research, the software integrates directly to Agilent’s suite of proteomics and metabolomics software, which provides tools for automated protein and peptide identification, confirmation, profiling and characterization.
The TOF is also compatible with Agilent ChemStation and the ChemStation Data Browser.
The 6210 TOF was designed to be a "walk-up" accurate mass instrument, which means that it can be used by any scientist who walks up to the instrument and follows the simple step-by-step directions outlined by Agilent’s LC/MS Easy Access software.
"Customers have assumed that it is impossible to create an accurate mass instrument that is user-friendly. In fact, even experts have viewed the technology as difficult," said Taia Ergueta, general manager of Agilent’s mass spectrometry business.
"With the 6210, we have designed an instrument that will make accurate mass measurements easy and accessible for all scientists."
The system combines an analog-to-digital acquisition system, a dual-nebulizer ion source and an automated calibrant delivery system to eliminate the need for users to introduce internal mass standards and match signal intensities, tasks that are traditionally difficult and unreliable to perform.
"The 6210 simultaneously delivers speed, broad dynamic range and mass accuracy approaching FT MS - a combination that has been elusive in ESI-TOF MS," said Rick Carberry, senior director of LC/MS marketing at Agilent.
"The power of accurate mass, along with new levels of reliability and ease of use, brings high-performance MS to new applications in protein and metabolomics profiling, along with walk-up protein and small molecule confirmation."
