I am interested in high-res MS history, especially with regards to the large magnetic sector instruments back in the 50's to 80's.
I especially want to know what kind of resolution they could accomplish in contrast to the current ToF and/or orbitrap instruments at 1-5 ppm.
Perhaps the most thorough treatment is in v.9 of the Encyclopedia of MS:
http://b-ok.org/book/2715942/a80f42
There is a succinct note on the history on p. 45 in this book:
http://b-ok.org/book/550390/a2240f
Also, Watson and Sparkman's book has a whole chapter on the history of MS, but I'd leave that for a distant last.
Our institute used a Finnigan MAT 8200 as first high res instrument. It was developed in the 1970s in Bremen, Germany. We bought it in 1984.
It reached a maximum resolution of roundabout R = 5.000 in MID measurements (dioxin analysis with capillary GC) for m/z 413.9775. The theoretical resolving power was 50.000 with 10% valley. But this was really a theoretical value. In practice resolutions about 10.000 were not achievable.
Please keep in mind the 10%-valley definition of the resolution.
Thanks!
I am finding it very difficult to establish a brief history of the evolution of "high-res" MS; there was an instrument called Omegatron, for example, and I have found only a passing reference in a patent as to resolution (about 0.01), and I still don't know who manufactured it.
We are now implementing a variety of discovery or "non-targeted" HR-MS methods for public health and toxicological applications (mostly LC). As such, it is important to develop guidance for how much confidence we have for the identification of features. In my mind, it is important to have context as to how the field developed over time; early on, data were precious and individual samples were hand curated. Now we tend to rely too much on proprietary software from manufacturers and really do not know how the machine decided the identity of a particular compound.
Again, thanks for your insights.
cheers, Joach
Good Morning,
I did a lot of writing on this subject in preparation for my candidacy tests. The omegatron is what the FT-ICR was based off of and showed the first uses of ion cyclotron resonance by Hipple et al. You can read about that in the paper "A Precise Method of Determining Faraday by Magnetic Resonance" Physical Review 1949, 76 (12) 1877-1878.
Otherwise, here are some of the resources I used for writing that you may like:
Introduction to Mass Spectrometry and Its Applications by Robert Kiser
Mass Spectrometry: Principles and Applications by Edmond de Hoffman
Measuring Mass from Positive Rays to Proteins by Michael A Grayson
I hope this helps!
Emily
Thanks Emily!
It is surprisingly difficult to get a realistic feel for HR-MS history.
Who actually manufactured Omegatrons? I know they came out of University on Minnesota but I can't find a corporate connection. Also - what was the resolution/resolving power of the original Omegatrons? I found a patent that indicates "63", so I assume they meant around 0.01 to 0.001, or so for smaller gas molecules?
- joach
I found an interesting poster with a "German" point of view of HR-MS history. Please find it attached.
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