Mass Spectrometry - Essay Example

Mass spectrometry This is a very powerful technique used to quantify known materials, their chemical properties and structure, and to identify the unknown compounds in a sample. A complete process of mass spectrometry involves the conversion of samples into gaseous ions. Mass spectrometry studies the influence of ionizing energy in molecules. This highly depends on the chemical reactions, which occur in the gas phase whereby molecules are consumed to form neutral and ionic species. Mass spectrometry generates various ions from the sample being studied.

These ions are separated in accordance with their real mass to charge proportion. The first step involves the production of ions of the compound by electron ionization. Each production is generated from the molecular ion. The result results are then displayed in a plot of a graph of ion abundance against mass-to-charge proportion. The ions give information concerning the structure and nature of their original molecule. However, the spectrum of a molecular ion appears at a greater value, which gives the total molecular mass of the substance.

Mass spectrometry instrument consists of various components, the detector system that detects ions and records the relative abundance of every compound, the ion source, which produces gaseous ions, and the analyzer, which resolves ions into their respective mass components. In addition, a computer is also required to monitor and control the instrument, get and manipulate data then use it to compare spectra. With the help of these components, a mass spectrometer can perform various processes. This includes separating ions in accordance to the ratio of their mass to charge, producing ions from the compound, which is done in the ionization source, fragmenting and analyzing ions, processing signals from the detector, which are then transmitted to the computer system and controlling the instrument via feedback and detect the ions from the last analyzer and measure their abundance.

This can be done using the detector, which converts the ions to electrical signals. Mass spectrometry has several advantages compared to the other analytical techniques used. It is highly accurate, can be coupled with liquid chromatography to separate samples further, and has a large mass range, and fast, autoruns with sampler or direct injection. On the other hand, it has some drawbacks like its complicated spectra, salts drown signal which takes more time to filter from the machine, a high-intensity peak that can eclipse smaller intensity peaks and fine-tuning work.

In conclusion, although Mass spectrometry is a useful method for analyzing synthetic proteins, it has some limitations. One important limitation concerns the ability to determine reliable abundance for the reaction side-product and modification peptides. When these side-products differ from the desired target peptide in their binding properties to the NC surface, then the relative peak heights observed in the mass spectrum will not accurately reflect the relative abundance of various components present in the sample.

However, it is still a suitable analytical technique to use to investigate disorder.