Finland - Laboratory, optical and precision equipments (excl. glasses)

Description

Background Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS): this equipment is one of the most valuable and powerful analytical instruments applied in a wide range of areas including environmental monitoring, and analysis, pharmaceutical, food processing, agrochemical and cosmetic industries. Recently, environmental monitoring and impact assessment associated with various contaminants including low or non-volatile organic compounds in an aqueous solution cannot be handled with high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) or gas chromatography. LC-MS/MS is an instrument that combines liquid chromatography (LC or HPLC) with mass spec-trometry (MS). Coupled with MS is popular in chemical analysis due to the enhanced specificity and selectivity by two MS analyzers (i.e., triple quadrupole). The increased sensitivity using LC-MS/MS is also achieved to reach low parts per billion (ppb). Among the ionization techniques, electrospray ionization (ESI) allows the production of multiply charged ion which results in the ability of analyzing high molecular weight species. ESI also allows sensitive detection of singly charged low molecular weight polar species such as drugs and drug metabolites. The formation of positive or negative ions occurs in high yield. Additionally, ESI is an atmospheric pressure process, which makes it easy to use and easy to interface with HPLC and capillary electrophoresis (CE) separation techniques. In the proposed application, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with triple quadrupole mass analyzer will be purchased for separation and simultaneous quantification of analytes in environmental samples and fast switching between positive and negative ion modes will be an asset. Scan, SIM, and MRM mode will be acquired as MS and MS/MS acquisition mode for further targeting and searching for precursor and product ions of analytes.Description of current state:The current existing equipment in the Department of Green Chemistry, LUT is HPLC, which delivers a less sensitive and has limitation to structural identification of the individual component in water samples. Due to the detection limit of current equipment, it is not possible to determine the ppb level concentration of emerging pollutants. To improve structural identification and detection sensitivity, an alternative instrument that currently present at DGC is gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). However, multiple manual sample preparation steps including pre-concentration of water samples prior to analysis are required, which result in decreased reproducibility, accuracy and sensitivity the analytical methodology throughout. Additionally, a large initial volume of sample is essential. At DGC and other LUT research entities, researchers have frequent and extensive analysis of water samples for environmental monitoring and analysis, and evaluation of materials and technology for water purification and environmental applications. Increasingly, researchers are being challenged to understand trace non-volatile organic contaminants as well as to identify intermediates or by-products in their research activities, but they lack a key analytical tool. Specifically, the incorporation of LC-MS/MS within DGC will enhance the research teams’ ability. This will enable LUT’s researchers to effectively compete with researchers from other universities around the world by analyzing and monitoring their samples with the same level of detection, sensitivity and reliability. Description of the target state (which needs should be fulfilled). The proposed LC-MS/MS in this application is an atmospheric pressure ionization or electrospray ionization (ESI) triple quadrupole LC-MS/MS complete with thermostated autosampler, binary pressure gradient pumps, column oven, computer, nitrogen gas generator, rotary pump, soft-ware, installation, and training. A full description of the procurement is Appendix 1.

Opportunity closing date

13 November 2019

Value of contract

£100k-1m