- UPLC-MS Ultra press Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry
Water UPLC-MS
An LC-MS is an UPLC system with a mass spec
detector. The UPLC separates chemicals by conventional chromatography on a
column. Usually the method will be reverse phase chromatography, where the
metabolite binds to the column by hydrophobic interactions in the presence of a
hydrophilic solvent (for instance water) and is eluted off by a more
hydrophobic solvent (methanol or acetonitrile). As the metabolites appear from
the end of the column they enter the mass detector, where the solvent is
removed and the metabolites are ionized. The metabolites must be ionized
because the detector can only work with ions, not neutral molecules. And ions
only fly through a very good vacuum, so removal of the solvent is a vital first
step. The mass detector then scans the molecules it sees by mass and produces a
full high-resolution spectrum, separating all ions that have different masses.
