PNNL

Abstract

An array of emitters has been developed for increasing the sensitivity of electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). The linear array consists of 19 chemically etched fused silica capillaries arranged with 500 µm (center-to-center) spacing. The multi-emitter device has a low dead volume to facilitate coupling to capillary liquid chromatography (LC) separations. The high aspect ratio of the emitters enables operation at flow rates as low as 20 nL/min/emitter, effectively extending the benefits of nanoelectrospray to higher flow rate analyses. To accommodate the larger ion current produced by the emitter array, a multi-capillary inlet to the mass spectrometer was also constructed. The inlet, which matched the dimensions of the emitter array, effectively preserved ion transmission efficiency. Standard reserpine solutions of varying concentration were electrosprayed at 1 µL/min using the multi-emitter/multi-inlet combination, and compared to a standard, single emitter configuration. A nine-fold sensitivity enhancement was observed for the multi-emitter relative to the single emitter. A bovine serum albumin tryptic digest was also analyzed and resulted in a sensitivity increase ranging from 2.4 to 12.3-fold for the detected tryptic peptides; the varying response was attributed to reduced ion suppression under the nano-ESI conditions afforded by the emitter array. An equimolar mixture of leucine enkephalin and maltopentaose was studied to verify that ion suppression is indeed reduced for the multi-ESI array relative to a single emitter over a range of flow rates.