The speed of time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) with time array detection (TAD) enables new and exciting chromatographic concepts to be explored, one of which is called fast chromatography. This technique involves condensing the sample in a trap or column space by cryo-technology, subsequent to which the sample is ballistically heated, compressing the sample in the temporal dimension along the column axis. This cryofocusing can result in sample injection bandwidths as small as 20 msec. If MS detection is to be used, spectral generation rates in excess of 100/sec must be attainable. Using TOFMS with TAD at rates of 100 300 spectra/sec, several trapping and heating approaches have been investigated. Eluting bandwidths of less than 50 msec have been achieved, and using the concepts of time-compressed chromatography (developed in the MSU Mass Spectrometry Facility) several types of typical analyses have been reduced in time by factors from 5 80 . In a record (not typical) performance in 1995, 55 compounds were analytically resolved in 14 sec. Using a similar approach in 1996, 21 compounds were analyzed in 3 seconds. Interestingly, at these elution bandwidths, only multi-channel TOFMS has the speed to accommodate the chromatographic information, whereas existing single-channel commercial detectors simply do not.
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