High through-put and highly sensitive liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry separations of essential amino acids using active flow technology chromatography columns

• Published in: Journal of Chromatography A Vol. 1305; pp. 102 - 108
• Main Authors: Kocic, D., Pereira, L., Foley, D., Edge, T., Mosely, J.A., Ritchie, H., Conlan, X.A., Shalliker, R.A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 30.08.2013; Elsevier
• Subjects: Active flow technology; Amino Acids, Essential - isolation & purification; Aminoacids, peptides. Hormones. Neuropeptides; Analytical chemistry; Analytical, structural and metabolic biochemistry; Biological and medical sciences; Chemistry; Chromatographic methods and physical methods associated with chromatography; Chromatography; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid - instrumentation; Columns (structural); Curtain flow; Design analysis; Design standards; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; HPLC–MS/MS; Limit of Detection; Liquid chromatography; Mass spectrometry; Other chromatographic methods; Proteins; Separation; Tandem Mass Spectrometry - methods; HPLC–MS/MS; Active flow technology; Mass spectrometry; Curtain flow; α-Aminoacid; Tandem mass spectrometry; Chemical analysis; HPLC-MS/MS; Coupled method; HPLC chromatography; Columns; Electrospray; Quantitative analysis
• ISSN: 0021-9673; 1873-3778
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2013.07.001

•HPLC–MS was undertaken for the first time using curtain flow columns.•Column flow rates of up to 5mL/min could be used with MS detection.•Through-put was 5× greater than standard columns of the same internal diameter.•S/N was up to 10× greater than standard columns of the same internal diameter. A preliminary investigation was undertaken to assess the performance of a new chromatography column technology in applications involving liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. The new column design allows mobile phase and solute to be extracted from the radial central region of the column, which reduces the solvent load to the mass spectrometer and improves separation efficiency. Effectively the column functions as a ‘wall-less’ column. The advantages of this design is that the analysis through-put can be increased by a factor of five, while at the same time there is a reduction in baseline noise, which results in an increase in the signal to noise response by up to 10-fold in comparison to standard columns with the same internal diameter and approaching 66-fold in comparison to standard columns with the same virtual internal diameter.