Instrument provides femtogram-level sensitivity, reliability and ease of use at 30 to 50 percent lower cost
Agilent Technologies has introduced its first triple quadrupole liquid chromatograph/mass spectrometer (LC/MS) system, which provides femtogram-level sensitivity, new ease-of-use features and Agilent reliability, along with a 30 to 50 percent lower price than competitive instruments in its class.
Called the Agilent 6410 triple quadrupole LC/MS, it is the latest addition to Agilent's 6000 series of LC/MS systems.
Regulatory agencies around the world continue to impose more stringent standards for the analysis of complex samples such as: soil or ground water being tested for toxins; foods being tested for pesticides or being certified as organic; blood, urine and oral fluids tested in forensics and sports doping labs; and pharmaceuticals and metabolites in human blood serum being tested as part of a New Drug Application.
To meet these standards, customers in pharmaceutical discovery and development, food and environmental testing, forensics, proteomics, and targeted metabolomics increasingly rely on the sensitivity and specificity of triple quadrupole LC/MS to quantify trace levels of products, metabolites and contaminants in complex samples.
However, along with the demand for lower detection levels, most labs also face increasing sample workloads and decreasing budgets.
"We designed the 6410 with sensitivity, performance and costs in mind to address the growing challenges of the modern analytical laboratory," said Taia Ergueta, general manager of Agilent's mass spectrometry business.
"Our triple quad delivers femtogram-level sensitivity and high sample throughput day after day -- all at a great cost savings to our customers".
"The 6410 will transform the efficiency and productivity of quantitative MS and allow laboratories to meet the critical needs of their research projects and businesses." Based on the proven design of Agilent's best-selling single quad MS, the 6410 delivers high performance and reproducible analyses.
Ion optics enhance ion transmission and spectral resolution.
A new collision cell design optimises MS/MS fragmentation and eliminates cross-talk without sacrificing signal strength.
These features facilitate high-throughput target compound analysis in food safety and environmental applications.
As with all 6000 Series instruments, the 6410 incorporates several features to further maximize uptime and productivity.
Agilent's proprietary autotune technology and a wide mass-bandwidth design allow for mass axis and quadrupole resolution calibration at the click of a mouse.
These features minimize the time required to tune the mass analyzer and greatly enhance the speed of method development, especially in food safety and environmental applications where the target compound lists can be quite long.
The rugged nature of Agilent's source design keeps the internal ion optics clean so that maintenance of the quadrupoles and other internal lenses is rarely required.
Finally, compatibility with Agilent's multimode source (simultaneous ESI and APCI) further increases productivity by eliminating the need for repeated experimental runs in complex applications.
The recently released Agilent MassHunter Workstation software provides an integrated, single point of control and data acquisition for the 6410, with powerful real-time monitoring, method set-up, system tuning and mass calibration.
This allows users to transform enormous amounts of data into the answers they need.
The Agilent 6410 Triple Quadrupole LC/MS is available now, with shipments beginning in the third quarter of 2006.
