Publications

Achieving Resolution, Resolving Power & Peak Capacity with SLIM Technology

Traveling-Wave-Based Electrodynamic Switch for Concurrent Dual-Polarity Ion Manipulations in Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations

Author(s)

Isaac K. Attah, Gabe Nagy, Sandilya V.B. Garimella, Randolph V. Norheim, Gordon A. Anderson, Yehia M. Ibrahim, Richard D. Smith

Abstract

Conventional drift tube IMS (DTIMS) generally aims to provide ion mobility separations under a constant and low electric field where there is a direct relationship between the ion's mobility and its collisional cross section. This is not the case for other ion mobility techniques, such as traveling-wave IMS (TWIMS), field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS), and trapped IMS (TIMS), where higher fields can be experienced by ions. In regards to IMS platform performance, resolution (between analytes of interest), resolving power, peak capacity, and sensitivity are all metrics where improvements are desired. This paper explores how MOBILion's SLIM technology can be used for significant gains in resolution, resolving power, and peak capacity in ion manipulation.

Customer Intro

Problem

Solution

Conclusions

Abstract

The paper, published in Analytical Chemistry concludes:

In this paper, MOBILion's SLIM technology was used in conjunction with dual-polarity ion switch to simultaneously manipulate and separate the ions of both polarities over the same path to achieve high resolution separations.
To increase the resolution achievable with many IMS platforms (e.g., DTIMS and TWIMS), the physical path length has to be increased. This remains a challenge, as significant increases in path length may, for example, require a proportionally large increase in applied voltages.
A significant feature of SLIM-based HRIM-MS is the ability to achieve very long serpentine path lengths as well as multipass separations using serpentine ultralong paths with extended routing (SUPER), enabled by an ion switch that can route ions either to the beginning of the serpentine SLIM path or to a mass spectrometer for detection.
In this paper the routing efficiency of the SLIM TW switch was compared to a SLIM direct-current-based (DC) switch developed previously for IMS-MS. In TW ion switch resolution increased by 27% when the SLIM surface bias voltage was increased to 20 V. In the case of the DC switch, the resolution decreased by 56% when the bias voltage was changed from 0 to 20 V. This highlights the efficiency of MOBILion's SLIM technology.
The MOBILion SLIM is expected to be useful for the further analysis of product ions (e.g., fragment ion mobility analysis, tandem ion–ion reactions, etc.) that result from ion-ion reactions (ETD to ECD) of the precursor or parent ions, when used in conjunction with TW switch.

Results