US Patent:
20030197121, Oct 23, 2003
Inventors:
Frantisek Turecek - Seattle WA, US
Adi Scheidemann - Seattle WA, US
Terry Olney - Tracy CA, US
Frank Schumacher - Fall City WA, US
Martin Smrcina - Tucson AZ, US
Peter Strop - Tucson AZ, US
Marcel Patek - Tucson AZ, US
Daniel Schirlin - Bad Soden, DE
International Classification:
H01J049/26
US Classification:
250/281000, 250/282000, 250/296000
Abstract:
The present invention provides an instrument and methods for the preparative separation of components of mixtures using mass spectrometric methods. Nondestructive ionization methods are employed to generate ionized components of a mixture, the ionized components are spatially separated by mass and the mass-separated ion components are trapped. The ion source and mass spectrometric techniques employed allow the generation of large ion currents of ion components, on the order of nanoamps, which facilitate rapid accumulation of nanomole quantities of mass-separated components in relatively short times (minutes to hours).