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A new sheathless electrospray interface for coupling of capillary electrophoresis to ion‐trap mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Bendahl Lars,
Hansen Steen Honoré,
Olsen Jørgen
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
rapid communications in mass spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.528
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1097-0231
pISSN - 0951-4198
DOI - 10.1002/rcm.865
Subject(s) - chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , mass spectrometry , capillary electrophoresis , electrospray ionization , electrospray , ion trap , chromatography , detection limit , impurity , organic chemistry
A simple laboratory‐made sheathless electrospray interface for coupling of capillary electrophoresis to ion‐trap mass spectrometry (CE/MS) was developed. The interface was machined in‐house and it was designed to be freely interchangeable with the commercially available ionization sources for the mass spectrometer. Sharpened fused‐silica capillaries were coated with nickel by a simple electrodeless plating procedure and were used as all‐in‐one columns/emitters. The electrodeless plating produced a 2–5‐µm thick smooth nickel layer that lasted for more than 8 h of continuous electrospraying. The performance of the CE/MS interface was examined by using four cationic imipramine derivatives as test substances. Relative detection limits were calculated on the basis of the extracted ion electrophorograms and were in the range 6–130 nmol/L, corresponding to absolute detection limits in the range of 20–400 amol. The system was applied for analysis of impurities in an impure imipramine N ‐oxide preparation, and two of the impurities could be identified on the basis of online‐MS(MS) spectra recorded in scan‐dependent mode. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.