A Method of Screening Samples

摘要

A method of screening a sample for at least one compound of interest is disclosed. The method comprises comparing the ion mobility and at least one further physicochemical property of the ions of a compound of interest to the same properties of candidate ions in the sample. The properties of the compound of interest are matched to those of a candidate ion in the sample then the sample may be determined to comprise the compound of interest.

主权项

1. A method of screening a sample for at least one compound of interest comprising:
selecting at least one compound of interest that may be present in a sample and assigning an expected value, or range of expected values, corresponding to the ion mobility of ions produced by ionisation of the compound of interest and an expected value, or range of expected values, of at least one further physicochemical property relating to the ions produced by ionisation of the compound of interest; providing the sample to a mass spectrometer or ion mobility spectrometer; ionising the sample to produce candidate ions; experimentally measuring the ion mobilities of the candidate ions using an ion mobility separator so as to obtain an experimental value corresponding to the ion mobility of each of the candidate ions; experimentally measuring said at least one further property relating to the candidate ions; and wherein, for each type of candidate ion, the experimental value corresponding to the ion mobility and said at least one further property are compared to the ion mobility value(s) and the at least one further property value(s) relating to the ions produced by ionisation of the compound of interest, respectively.