GC-MS Brands for the pacific

[Rocknroll99]

Hello

I am a long time user of GC and GCMS gear but only have used Aglient and Shimadzu. (but mainly looked at FAMEs and lipids)

I have been asked to help set up a lab in the remote pacific to give the options buying a GCMS.

The scope I have is for a GCMS that will be used for water quality and for standardisation of some plant extracts, some of which are lipophillic in nature, not necessarily FAMEs. Also serum ethanol levels and possible other forensic uses for customs.

What GCMS should I be looking at? Needs to be reliable and easy to use
Aglient 7890 + Single quad MS?
Shimadzu?
Thermo? Waters? Bruker? others

I am not really that familiar with the brands and have no idea what kind of support for the wider pacific. I am based in NZ.

Any help here would be great. thanks in advance.

[James_Ball]

I don't know about the support in that area so I can't comment on that. If the price isn't the limiting factor I would look into the Agilent 7000 Triple Quad. It could be useful for the plant extracts doing MS/MS work, and still be very sensitive and stable for the water testing you are looking at using single quad analysis. We have one setup as our R&D instrument so it runs everything from purge and trap volatiles to semivolatiles to pesticides in drinking waters to THC analysis in Hemp extracts and also have done some development on pesticides and PCBs in turkey fat.

I actually have ours setup with dual columns, Rxi-624SilMS in the rear for volatiles and Rxi-5SilMS in the front for extractables. The max temps on the columns are compatible so no changing out when switching methods, just lower the flow on the unused column to about 0.3ml/min and you are good to go. I also have manual switching valve on the carrier gas lines so I can switch between helium and hydrogen for even more flexibility. Also I would suggest the MMI inlet for extractables if you try the dual inlet setup, it will give you more options including cool on column and large volume injection. It would be a one instrument does all setup.

[Rocknroll99]

I don't know about the support in that area so I can't comment on that. If the price isn't the limiting factor I would look into the Agilent 7000 Triple Quad. It could be useful for the plant extracts doing MS/MS work, and still be very sensitive and stable for the water testing you are looking at using single quad analysis. We have one setup as our R&D instrument so it runs everything from purge and trap volatiles to semivolatiles to pesticides in drinking waters to THC analysis in Hemp extracts and also have done some development on pesticides and PCBs in turkey fat.

I actually have ours setup with dual columns, Rxi-624SilMS in the rear for volatiles and Rxi-5SilMS in the front for extractables. The max temps on the columns are compatible so no changing out when switching methods, just lower the flow on the unused column to about 0.3ml/min and you are good to go. I also have manual switching valve on the carrier gas lines so I can switch between helium and hydrogen for even more flexibility. Also I would suggest the MMI inlet for extractables if you try the dual inlet setup, it will give you more options including cool on column and large volume injection. It would be a one instrument does all setup.

Thanks for the information, What software are you using? MassHUnter?

[James_Ball]

Yes, the 7000 only seems to work with Mass Hunter, though the 5977 ships with Mass Hunter and an optional MSDChemstation for quant only.

[Rocknroll99]

Has anyone had any experience with Bruker gear? I was recomended this by someone but I ave never ever seed a bruker GC (I really must get out more!)

[Peter Apps]

Bruker dropped out of the GC market quite soon after they picked up the benchtop GC-MS part of Varian, via Varian's takeover by Agilent. They rebadged the instruments and brought out one of their own called the Scion, which is now produced by a separate company.

Peter