What is the development of the field of mass spectrometry and what are our expectations in the future

In fact, the miniaturization of mass spectrometers has also started early, but it is limited to market demand and has not attracted enough attention. With the great demand in food safety, environmental pollution, public safety, military and other fields in recent years, more and more people have begun to study various miniaturized mass spectrometers.　　1. Small mass spectrometers　　 In fact, the miniaturization of mass spectrometers has also started a long time ago, but it is limited to market demand and has not attracted enough attention.　　 With the great demand in food safety, environmental pollution, public safety, military and other fields in recent years, more and more people have begun to study various miniaturized mass spectrometers. At present, in addition to several types of mass spectrometry that are difficult to miniaturize, such as magnetic sector mass spectrometry, Fourier transform-ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICRMS) and orbitrap mass spectrometry (orbitrap), others are quadrupoles, ion traps, There are many laboratories and companies doing the flight time. Especially quadrupoles and ion traps now have many commercial instruments. I was impressed by the fact that when I participated in ASMS in 2013, I saw that a company called 908device in the United States produced a handheld small ion trap mass spectrometer, which was similar in size to a marking machine and had a very friendly interface for firefighters to use and facilitate timely understanding. Rapid detection of explosive, flammable, toxic and harmful gases at the fire site. In addition, its ion trap mass analyzer is made into a module that is very easy to install, unload and maintain, which is very close to the standard of consumables. And its ion trap is made with MEMS technology, if it can be increased, the cost will be very low. Compared with Torion, Inficon, Condenser (Mars400), etc., which are more well-known in the market, 908device is a big step forward. In addition, the mini12 produced by Professor Ouyang Zheng’s laboratory of Purdue University in the past year or two has also changed the idea of u200bu200bsimply making the instrument small in the past. I heard that there are now pilots in American hospitals that can quickly identify blood samples, and the user interface of the instrument must be Traditional mass spectrometry has become very approachable again. Therefore, many people in the industry have expressed their views on the future development of mass spectrometry in recent years: 1 develop towards large-scale, multi-functional, high-throughput and high-sensitivity instruments (in short, three words, taller!); 2 towards miniaturization. The significance of the latter, as mentioned above, is not only to make the mass spectrometer smaller, but the deeper meaning should be to popularize the mass spectrometer, lower the threshold for the use of mass spectrometers, and expand the scope of use. Of course, there are still some bottlenecks to be overcome for small mass spectrometers, such as quantitative capabilities, but these are only temporary, and I believe that there will be a very bright future in the future.　　Second, high-end mass spectrometry 　　 Some high-end instruments developed over the years have either made new breakthroughs or combined with other technologies. New breakthroughs such as the Orbitrap, this is an electrostatic mass analyzer developed by Dr. Makarov of Russia based on kindontrap, which is characterized by extremely high mass resolution, far exceeding all types of mass spectrometers except FT-ICR. At present, Orbitrap is Thermo's unique technology, and it can be regarded as unique.　　 Combined with other technologies, a typical example is the combined use of various types of mobility spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Migration spectroscopy has always been popularly called mass spectrometry under atmospheric pressure in the industry. Its characteristic is that it can separate ions in space or time according to their mobility (mainly reflecting the collision cross-sectional area of u200bu200bthe ions, and indirectly reflecting the size and structure of the ions). Of course, there is also separation based on the difference between the mobility under high electric field and low electric field, which is called differential mobility spectroscopy or high-field asymmetric ion mobility spectroscopy. Once mobility spectroscopy and mass spectrometry are combined, two main purposes can be achieved, one is the preliminary separation of ions, and the other is ion mobility measurement or collision cross-section measurement. The advantage is that it can facilitate the analysis of ion structure and is applied in the field of proteomics. Extremely wide. The combination of mobility spectroscopy and mass spectrometry can use the analogy of the combined use of chromatography and mass spectrometry. Chromatography can also perform preliminary separation of sample components and obtain chromatograms. However, the advantage of ion mobility spectrometry over chromatography is that the analysis speed is much faster than that of chromatography, at least an order of magnitude difference. In addition, for the structure information of ions, there are few existing analytical instruments other than chromatography that can provide direct and versatile methods. From the various conferences I participated in and the direct communication with mass spectrometer users, I feel that many domestic mass spectrometer workers have very little knowledge about ion mobility spectroscopy. At present, major mass spectrometer manufacturers have their own migration spectroscopy technology, and most of them have been commercialized. Such as waters' synapt series products, agilent's 6560, Sciex's SelexIon and so on. It is believed that ion mobility spectroscopy will be a standard configuration of high-end mass spectrometry in the future. Of course, the independent ion mobility spectroscopy instrument itself will certainly have a good development.