New Mass Spectral Library Designed to Streamline Environmental Analyses

Laboratories analysing environmental, clinical research/toxicological, and food samples have a powerful new data tool expected to save time and money while identifying compounds with high levels of confidence. 

Thermo Fisher Scientific announced its high resolution accurate mass (HRAM) spectral library at the 62nd ASMS Conference on Mass Spectrometry and Allied Topics.

“This is a true library with full, high-resolution spectra for every compound it contains,” said Jennifer Massi, Program Manager, Environmental and Food Safety for Thermo Fisher Scientific. “In fact, we ran multiple MS/MS spectra for each compound, and each was analysed at multiple collision energies. This is designed to enhance method flexibility and confidence in results.”

The library was generated using the Thermo Scientific Q Exactive liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) system at 140,000 resolution to minimise false positives and negatives as well as matrix interference. Spectra are searchable using Thermo Scientific TraceFinder software. The library contains compounds for environmental and food safety analysis that include: pesticides, mycotoxins, veterinary drugs, perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) and other environmental contaminants. For clinical/toxicological research, it contains spectra for therapeutic and prescription drugs, illegal drugs and toxins.

The library is designed to help customers save time in method development by using defined retention times, and by searching the five most intense ions. Customers can save money because the library reduces the need to purchase standards to set up new libraries.  Method development flexibility is enhanced because spectra are generated at multiple collision energies per compound.