Product News: LC-MS/MS Delivers Increased Productivity and Sensitivity Performance

Shimadzu UK Ltd has launched the LCMS-8040, which offers users increased levels of productivity as it enables laboratories to run more scans and collect more data from fewer sample injections. An expansion of Shimadzu’s ultrafast mass spectrometry (UFMS) series, the instrument also features high sensitivity capabilities which deliver accurate measurements at low levels and high speeds so users can be confident in the results.

The robust LCMS-8040 features a fast quadrupole scan speed of 15,000 u/sec at 0.1 Da step size, as well as fast polarity switching at 15 msec. The instrument is capable of ultrafast MRM transition monitoring, up to a maximum 555 MRMs per second. Plus, the LCMS-8040’s patented power supply technology allows a short loop time to give both positive and negative ion data in a quick time.

The ability to scan fast, in addition to short pause and dwell times, of 1 and 0.8 msec respectively, means that the LCMS-8040 is able to create more points across a peak resulting in better quantitation to deliver more accurate measurements, first time. The result is more information with less work which leads to improved productivity as well as an increased level of confidence in the results. For users doing method development, the LCMS-8040 enables full scan data and MRM to be captured simultaneously which allows the matrix effects to be seen more clearly.

The new LCMS-8040 features re-engineered ion optics and collision cell technology that results in higher ion transmission and collision induced dissociation efficiency which translates into major sensitivity performance benefits.

The new instrument, which can be upgraded from Shimadzu’s LCMS-8030, is ideal for a wide variety of laboratory applications including clinical analysis, drugs of abuse screening, ADME analysis, environmental analysis and food testing.

Shimadzu offers prepackaged methods to enable rapid installation of the LCMS-8040. Once a user has developed new methods, individual components can easily be reused which helps to reduce rework and boost productivity. A single injection delivers full scan, MRM and pos/neg data as well as many triggered scans. This allows quantification and confirmation in a single scan of any compound which is ionized to either positive or negative ion.

Shimadzu’s software provides a single platform for Shimadzu LC/GC/LCMS and GCMS with intuitive and unified operation flow and new functionalities for more efficient data processing. For analyses using both GC-MS/MS and LC-MS/MS for the same sample, such as multi-target quantitative analysis in food safety and forensic, the unified graphical user interface of software minimizes the time to learn the operation for both instruments which reduces training times and minimizes the total cost of ownership.

"The LCMS-8040 delivers a winning combination of speed and sensitivity which enables scientists to conduct ‘Qual/Quan’ analysis and cover a wide range of applications such as clinical, environmental, pharmaceutical, forensics and food safety. The instrument’s class leading sensitivity allows accurate quantitation of low level analytes and its speed enables users to collect more data in a fixed period of time. Put simply, you get more information for less work with the LCMS-8040,” explains Stuart Phillips, Shimadzu UK’s LC/LCMS Business Manager. “Shimadzu enjoys a long history of engineering reliable and robust equipment as the company has been a scientific and engineering company for more than 135 years”.