The Power of High Resolution Accurate Mass Using Orbitrap Based GC-MS

Obtaining mass spectrometer (MS) measurements with high mass accuracy is essential to providing the required selectivity in complex matrices and to increasing the confidence in compound identification and confirmation. For the former, obtaining a consistently high mass accuracy allows the use of very narrow mass extraction windows, taking full advantage of the instrument’s mass resolving power. For the latter, measuring the mass of a chemical with sufficient accuracy allows the chemist to predict the elemental composition and isotopic ratios to help identify the chemical structure of the substance. This application note demonstrates that, using the high resolution of the Q Exactive GC mass spectrometer, excellent mass accuracy is always available to the user, across a wide concentration range and in the presence of a complex chemical background.