The marriage between the HPLC (the fish) and the Mass Spectrometer (the bird) could be difficult because they live in a different environment. The mobile phase from the HPLC has to be transferred from a liquid to a gas before introduction in to the Mass Spectrometer.

If the mobile phase is water with a flow of 1mL/min, this 1mL corresponds to 1,200 mL of gas.

This is the reason for using atmospheric pressure ionization and only the ionized material is introduced into the Mass Spectrometer.

In the combination of GC and MS it is much simpler since both need a gas and the flow rate fits as well.

This course will cover :

• different types of separation systems such as GC, HPLC or CE
• different types of interfaces (connection between the separation system and the ion source)
• different ionization techniques like electron impact, EI and chemical ionization CI most types of ionization will be covered including electrospray ESI and ApCi
• different types of mass separation e.g. different types of Mass Spectrometers like quadrupole and ion trap.
• application areas for the different instruments will also be covered.
• different types of detectors
• data system for the control of the instrument and collecting and working with the data.
• other types of assistance.