Chromatography Forum

Dear Chromatographers ,

Thanking you in advance for your guidance , since we don't know much about MS systems.

We are planning to purchase a second hand LC/MS for pesticide analysis , mostly raw materials ( if there are impurities ) and waste water testing.

Is Agilent G1946A MS with ESI and APCI probe suitable for this type of work ?

Another option is Sciex API-3000 MS/MS with API probe only , but we prefer Agilent if suitable.

Any information will be much appreciated.

You probably ought to go with the Ab Sciex instrument. It's a triple-quad. So you get better specificity and depending on the condition it should have improved sensitivity.

I have a couple of 1956B's only one of which works. It's starting to get difficult to get replacement parts.

Be careful buying such an old instrument. The G1946A was a good, reliable single-quad in its day, but its day was a long time ago. You may have a lot of trouble getting spare parts if anything goes wrong (not to mention the problem of finding an engineer with appropriate knowledge to diagnose the fault).
I'd also agree that a triple quad is far more appropriate for pesticide analysis, but have no experience of the model you suggest.

Many thanks for your replies , now I have more information to proceed.

With a limited budget , it is very important to find a machine with good price to performance ratio.

You can get a Quattro Micro for about the same price as a decent single quad machine. I would avoid the 1946A; you'd want at least a 1946D if you are going to use single quad. What you'll find with single quad is a lot more matrix issues raise their ugly head than with triple quad and thus your sample prep is much more involved. It is not a good idea to use a single quad for this type of analysis if you're a neophyte.

The Quattro Micro or Sciex 3000 would be a good, inexpensive machine. I vastly prefer MassLynx to Analyst (hell, I prefer paper to Analyst) so I would lean towards the Quattro systems.

We have a Sciex 3200 and it seems to be reliable so far in the ten years we have been using it. The worse problem with all the older instruments is going to be the compatibility with the computer that controls it. Analyst from Sciex will work on Windows 7, but is not certified for Windows 8 or 10. It also doesn't seem to run as well on W7 as it did on XP.

I am finding very few if any systems that are shipping with anything above Windows7 so far, I don't know if Windows 10 will finally be something the instrument manufacturers can work with or not. If not, I'm not sure what the instrument companies will do in the future.

uzman,

My company buys/sells/refurbishes analytical equipment and instrumentation. We have a few pre-owned Sciex mass specs that I'd be happy to get you information on. Because they are pre-owned, your budget will be happy and we can discussing financing or leasing options to spread the cost over time. Contact me if interested!