A Solution for
Ever-exacting Standards
To comply with ever more exacting food safety requirements, food safety
testing organizations must find technologies that meet a variety of increased performance thresholds, but are also affordable and easy to use.
The challenges the food industry faces include:
• Testing for a growing number of chemical residues at lower maximum
residue limits (MRLs) in a large number of complex food matrices
• Decreasing the cost per analysis despite the need for a higher-end
technology solution to meet performance requirements
• Training personnel to run advanced systems
• Performing untargeted analyses to prevent incidents such as melamine
contamination of milk
confirmation of targeted compounds and
identification of unknown species in the
same analysis.
The mass accuracy is precise in both
polarities independent of the experiment
mode, demonstrating excellent mass accuracy even with external mass calibration.
A new LC-MS solution that can
meet all of these challenges is the
Thermo Scientific Exactive, the first
non-hybrid, benchtop mass spectrometer to be powered by the
award-winning Orbitrap™ mass analyzer technology.
This instrument uses high-resolution accurate mass spectrometry
to provide fast, reproducible, precise results. Its ability to perform
compound identification, high-
throughput screening, and qualitative and quantitative analysis in virtually
any matrix makes it an ideal solution for food safety testing.
Minimize Training Requirements
As an easy-to-use benchtop system,
this system is ideal for non-mass spectrometry specialists performing the kind of
routine screening and compound identification applications typically found in food
safety laboratories.
This instrument streamlines many of
the technical steps that normally require
specialized setup and operation. An intuitive software interface makes the system
user-friendly in both expert and “walk-up”
mode, while ensuring precise mass identification of target compounds over a wide
concentration range.
www.thermo.com/exactive
Identify Compounds in Complex Matrices
A growing record of successful experiments has shown that the ability
to perform high-resolution LC-MS analysis is the key to measuring accurate
mass, identifying molecular structure and quantifying complex samples. All
these capabilities are critical to success in a regulated industry.
Just as photographs will look blurry if the resolution is not high enough,
molecular mass measurement will be inaccurate and identification will be
impossible if the resolution is not sufficient. This instrument offers up to
100,000× resolution for complex sample analysis, the highest resolution
available in a benchtop mass spectrometer, enabling users to perform
high-resolution analyses for routine applications for the first time. It is ideal
for online LC-MS analyses, enabling separation of isobaric peaks and
thereby correct identification of the target compound within the specified
instrument mass accuracy.
High resolution is critical for accurate analysis under several conditions
likely in food, such as when low and high concentrations are present in the
same sample, or where there is a complex background matrix. High resolution is also essential for enabling the determination of elemental compositions, or for performing quantitation.
Reduce Cost and Analysis Time
with High Throughput
One of the greatest challenges food
producers face is maintaining production
levels while meeting increased screening
requirements. Ultra-high-performance liquid chromagraphy (UHPLC) can help solve
this problem by increasing the speed of
analysis, but chromatographic peak
widths of less than 1 second require an
equally fast detector.
This mass spectrometer delivers up to
10 data points/second with every scan,
giving analytical mass data with the correct answer and elemental composition.
Excellent mass accuracy (< 2 ppm) is obtained at all scan speeds using external
mass calibration. Equally good results are
achieved at the base of the HPLC peak
and at the peak top, which is important for
ensuring accurate mass results with fast
chromatography. This performance characteristic allows the use of single scans
rather than averaging several scans
across a chromatographic peak.
Screen for Unknown Compounds
The Exactive can also be used to analyze multiple compounds, especially where the compounds may be unpredictable or unknown, another
feature that makes the system ideal for increasingly complex food safety
analysis requirements.
A typical method setup for the identification of unknown compounds
uses alternating full MS and higher-energy collision dissociation scans,
providing accurate masses of the precursor and fragment ions. It provides
full-scan cycles with polarity switching in less than one second, enabling
A Solution for Ever-exacting
Standards
High-performance mass accuracy and
high resolution provide meaningful results
in analysis for difficult food matrices. This
instrument packages professional-grade
research technology in an easy-to-use, affordable system, making it an ideal solution for the many challenges the food
industry is facing.
