A novel combination of techniques is proposed as a mass detector for biological compounds. A quadrupole ion trap is used as a storage device for ions introduced from an Electrospray ionization source, thereby providing 100% duty cycle, while a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer is used for the rapid and highly sensitive mass analysis of ion bunches expelled from the ion trap on a sub-second time frame. This instrument would be ideally suited as a high sensitivity detector for various separations systems. Its ability to effectively mediate samples between a continuous ion source and a pulsed mass analyzer without requiring expensive detection electronics would be a performance breakthrough, providing an important analytical method in a potentially inexpensive MS package. Such a hybrid instrument would have the capability of providing highly accurate molecular weight and structural information for a wide variety of biological compounds, while at the same time possessing sensitivity characteristics currently unattainable on either dispersive or even other time-of-flight platforms. A low cost, modular approach will be used to demonstrate this technology on an existing Electrospray TOF instrument, optimizing sensitivity and mass resolution by using a gridless ion mirror. A minimal control strategy will be adopted to remove operational complexity and afford access to non-MS Arts with a wide variety of analytical backgrounds.
