Coupling electrochemistry to mass spectrometry and high performance liquid chromatography
AssigneeESA Biosciences, Inc.
InventorsUwe Karst, Georg Diehl, Heiko Hayen
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Abstract
A hyphenated technique based on the combination of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), electrochemical (coulometric) oxidation (EC) and electrospray ionization (ESI)- or atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI)-mass spectrometry (MS), allows access of selected groups of low and medium polarity analytes to ESI- or APCI-mass spectrometry after HPLC by electrochemical treatment of the sample.
Claims11
A method for analyzing a sample solution containing electrochemically active compounds comprising:
- passing said sample solution through a liquid chromatography column for achieving time-spaced separation of materials eluting from the column;
- passing materials eluting from said liquid chromatography column through a coulometric electrochemical flow cell for electrochemically converting said eluding materials to charged materials;
- and
- passing eluent from the electrochemical flow cell to a mass spectrometer and measuring materials contained in the sample by mass spectrometry.
A system for measuring sample solutions containing electroactive materials, said system comprising a high performance liquid chromatography system outputting an eluent;
- a coulometric electrochemical flow cell receiving the eluent and electrochemically converting materials in said eluent to charged materials;
- and
- a mass spectrometry system receiving eluent outputted from the electrochemical flow cell.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.