Miniaturized Separations and Increased Sensitivity – What to Expect when Moving to Micro and Nano Scale HPLC (North America)

As modern mass spectrometers (MS) have become ever increasingly more sensitive the limiting factor of the relative ionization efficacy has remained a constraint.

The limit to any mass spectrometer’s sensitivity is the amount of sample that gets ionized and subsequently introduced into the MS. The sensitivity challenge can be great, especially in situations where your analytes of interest are hard to ionize, or you are limited in the amount of physical sample you have to work with.

To overcome these challenges scientists are turning to miniaturized separation scale columns either micro scale or nano scale. Miniaturization of HPLC columns, just as with any miniaturization comes with its unique challenges.

In this talk, we will discuss some of the tools that are now available in terms of new column technologies, injection modes (trap and elute), and separation condition strategies, and even connection systems that can help with the miniaturization of analytical scale separations to micro and nano scale.