As a relatively recent entrant into the commercial arena, hybrid ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) instrumentation has not yet reached its full potential across academic, industrial and regulated sectors. However, one of the most important developments that can provide a step-change is increasing the IM resolving power to reduce the reliance on slow liquid-phase separation for analytical methods.
To this end, we are currently utilizing new high-resolution Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulation (SLIM) technology for the analysis of challenging molecular and isomer systems within a range of analytical applications including biotechnology and food. Using an analytical platform comprising the MOBIE® system and Agilent 6545 Q-TOF mass spectrometer, the rapid analysis of molecular and isomer systems including several classes of secondary metabolites with high-resolution IM (HRIM) and Q-TOF MS detection allows a substantial reduction in analysis time compared to conventional LC-MS workflows. New examples from our most recent research where SLIM-enabled HRIM provides critical enhancement of separation power compared to established standard resolution IM technologies and where new structural information about isomeric systems is revealed will be highlighted. Key analytical validation parameters relevant to real-world applications including the determination of HRIM-derived collision cross sections, measurement repeatability, and analytical sensitivity from high-throughput HRIM-MS methods will be presented.