Miniature mass spectrometers and their potential for clinical point-of-care analysis

Evaluation of a miniature mass spectrometer based point-of-care-test method for direct analysis of amlodipine and benazepril in whole blood

A miniature mass spectrometer (mMS) based point-of-care testing (POCT) method was evaluated for on-site detecting the hypertension drugs, amlodipine and benazepril. The instrument parameters, including voltage, ISO1, ISO2, and CID, were optimized, under which the target compounds could be well detected in MS2. When these two drugs were injected simultaneously, the mutual ionization inhibition and mutual reduction between amlodipine and benazepril were evaluated. This phenomenon was severe on the precursor ions but had a small impact on the product ions, thus making this POCT method suitable for analysis using product ions. Finally, the method was validated and applied. The blood samples from patients were tested one hour after oral administration of the drugs (20 mg), and the benazepril was quantitatively analyzed using a standard curve, with detected concentrations ranging from 190.6 to 210 μg L-1 and a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 8.6 %. In summary, amlodipine has low sensitivity and can only be detected at higher concentrations, while benazepril has high sensitivity, good linearity, and even meets semi-quantitative requirements. The research results of this study are of great clinical significance for monitoring blood drug concentrations during hypertension medication, predicting drug efficacy, and customizing individualized medication plans.

Portable Mass Spectrometry for On-site Detection of Hazardous Volatile Organic Compounds via Robotic Extractive Sampling

Various hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are frequently released into environments during accidental events that cause many hazards to ecosystems and humans. Therefore, rapid, sensitive, and on-site detection of hazardous VOCs is crucial to understand their compositions, characteristics, and distributions in complex environments. However, manual handling of hazardous VOCs remains a challenging task, because of the inaccessible environments and health risk. In this work, we designed a quadruped robotic sampler to reach different complex environments for capturing trace hazardous VOCs using a needle trap device (NTD) by remote manipulation. The captured samples were rapidly identified by portable mass spectrometry (MS) within minutes. Rapid detection of various hazardous VOCs including toxicants, chemical warfare agents, and burning materials from different environments was successfully achieved using this robot-MS system. On-site detection of 83 typical hazardous VOCs was examined. Acceptable analytical performances including low detection limits (at subng/mL level), good reproducibility (relative standard deviation (RSD) < 20%, n = 6), excellent quantitative ability (R2 > 0.99), and detection speed (within minutes) were also obtained. Our results show that the robot-MS system has excellent performance including safety, controllability, applicability, and robustness under dangerous chemical conditions.

Triboelectric Nanogenerators for the Masses: A Low-Cost Do-It-Yourself Pulsed Ion Source for Sample-Limited Applications

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) are useful devices for converting mechanical motion into electric current using readily available materials. Though the applications for these devices span across many fields, TENG can be leveraged for mass spectrometry (MS) as inexpensive and effective power supplies for pulsed nanoelectrospray ionization (nESI). The inherently discontinuous spray provided by TENG is particularly useful in scenarios where high sample economy is imperative, as in the case of ultraprecious samples. Previous work has shown the utility of TENG MS as a highly sensitive technique capable of yielding quality spectra from only a few microliters of sample at low micromolar concentrations. As the field of miniaturized, fieldable mass spectrometers grows, it remains critical to develop advanced ion sources with similarly small power requirements and footprints. Here, we present a redesigned TENG ion source with a sub-1000 USD material cost, lower power consumption, reduced footprint, and improved capabilities. We validate the performance of this new device for a diverse set of applications, including lipid double bond localization and native protein analysis.

Development of dual-photoionization ion trap mass spectrometry and its application for direct analysis of VOCs in fruit aroma

Photoionization-ion trap mass spectrometry (PI-ITMS) is one of the major directions of mass spectrometer miniaturization because of its great potential for rapid on-site VOCs detection in many cases. Traditionally, PI has always been investigated separately and is restrained by ion transmission structure, so a new structure needs to be designed and investigated for simplifying and improving the ion transmission efficiency. Interestingly, our preliminary experiments found that the signal intensity and mass range can be effectively improved by combing atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) and low-pressure photoionization (LPPI). Therefore, in this paper, a new dual photoionization - ion trap mass spectrometry (DPI-ITMS) was developed, explored and used to directly analyze complex VOCs. Compared with traditional single PI configuration, it presents two obvious merits: (1) simplified ion transmission structure, eliminating the need to use deflection electrode to repel ions and avoiding breakdown risk. (2) some missing/weak low m/z ion mass spectral peaks in APPI and some high m/z ion mass spectral peaks in LPPI were improved in DPI detection mode. In addition, by combining multivariate statistical analysis, we preliminary achieved in differentiating fruit types and maturity level. In summary, we concluded that the developed DPI-ITMS has moderate detection sensitivity (limited by the homemade ITMS, 0.1-1 ppmv with RSD of 6.36 %), and the DPI-ITMS configuration can be referenced by future PI-MS, and this study also provides a high-throughput, simple, noninvasive and no chemical contamination solution for analyzing main VOCs in fruit aroma.

A Miniature Orthogonal Injection Ion Funnel (MO-IF) Providing Enhanced Performance for the Miniature Mass Spectrometer

The sensitivity of the miniature mass spectrometer (mini-MS) is largely restricted by the ion transmission in rough vacuum region. Even though various "in-line" ion transfer devices have improved mini-MS sensitivity, the severe dynamic gas is still weakening the efficiency of ion transmission in this region. Inspired by the "off-axis" ion funnel design in the lab-scale mass spectrometers, a miniature orthogonal injection ion funnel (MO-IF) was developed in this study for the mini-MS with a continuous atmospheric pressure interface. Capable of directing injected ions by 90° and then transport them forward to the downstream skimmer, the MO-IF enabled the separation of ions from the dynamic gas flow jetted out of the inlet capillary. The key factors were optimized for the MO-IF, including the effects of RF amplitude, DC electric fields, and the position of the repeller. Under optimized conditions, the MO-IF minimized the negative effects of dynamic gas and improved the ion transmission efficiency by ∼2-fold in comparison with the in-line injection ion funnel. As a result, a lower limit of detection of 0.5 ng/mL were obtained with good linearity for hypaconitine. Additionally, the MO-IF further decreased the buffer gas pressure in the second vacuum chamber and improved the mass resolution by 1.1-1.5 times at different scan rates.

Recent advances in entirely hand-held ionization sources for mass spectrometry

Ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AIMS) has been developing explosively since its first debut. The ionization process was hence able to be achieved under atmospheric pressure, facilitating on-site field analysis in a variety of areas, such as clinical diagnosis, metabolic phenotyping, and surface analysis. As part of the ambitious goal of making MS a general device that can be used in everyday life, lots of efforts have been paid to miniaturize the ionization source. This review discusses avant-garde sources that could be entirely hand-held without any accessories. The structure and applications of the devices are described in detail as well. They could be expediently used in real-time and on-site analysis, presenting a great future potential for the routinizing of MS.

If speed is of the essence: rapid analysis of ambergris by APCI compact mass spectrometry

The use of atmospheric pressure chemical ionisation (APCI) compact mass spectrometry (CMS) was investigated for the analysis of jetsam and museum-archived ambergris and of ambergris components in perfumes. The data were compared with those from existing methods. Authentic samples of some individual ambergris constituents (ambrein, coprostanol, epicoprostanol and coprostanone), were also examined. Rapid APCI CMS was achieved using either a solids probe or a probe with solutions held in capillary melting point tubes. Interpretation is made of the spectra of the principal natural product components, the relative ion responses were measured and the elemental composition of key ions in the spectra confirmed using high resolution accurate mass APCI MS. Rapid analysis of ambergris by APCI CMS may prove to be a further convenient method of identifying ambrein, of measuring the relative ratios of ambrein and steroids in ambergris and even of quantifying the latter, with minimal sample preparation.