The Capillary Gap Sampler: a new microfluidic platform directly coupled to ESI-MS for fast analysis of low sample amounts

摘要

Among analytical tools for the early drug discovery process, direct hyphenation of miniaturized sampling devices to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) has attracted attention during the last decade. Reasons are that ESI-MS is compatible with microfluidics, and allows comprehensive sample analysis yielding information that is orthogonal to that available from optical methods which are usually applied.1-3 We present a "capillary gap sampler" as a platform for directly connecting microfluidics to μ-ESI-MS. The sampler was designed to be robust and compact, and allows fast sample introduction of a few nanoliters via a solid pin into a controlled liquid bridge as a new microfluidic element.