Thermo expands LC/MS product range

The system has been designed to serve the analytical needs of chromatographers working in quality assirance and control (QA/QC) laboratories, academia, and discovery and development in the drug sector, according to Thermo.

The annual market for liquid chromatography equipment and supplies is estimated at $3 billion (€2.3bn) in 2003, with HPLC the most popular technique in this category. As a mature product segment, HPLC is seeing incremental innovations in product design, and automation to improve throughput is one way companies are seeking to differentiate their products in the marketplace.

The Finnigan Surveyor Plus adheres to that trend, and offers the highest levels of photo diode array (PDA) detection among high-throughput sample processing environments, according to Thermo.

Features include a new stackable and modular bench-space saving design., as well as short cycle times, high sample capacity, low flow rate performance, and Thermo's patented LightPipe technology, which is claimed to be up to five times more sensitive than that of conventional PDA detectors.

It also has an integrated column oven and can handle either vials or plates , and can integrate with Thermo's just-launched Finnigan Surveyor MSQ Plus - tying in with the rapid emergence of mass spectroscopy as one of the most useful detection methods for a number of HPLC applications.

Unknown chromatographic peaks can appear during the development and manufacturing of drugs, and LC/MS is a step forward compared to conventional UV detection in HPLC because it is faster, more sensitive and lends itself to high throughput mass confirmation.

At 12 inches wide, the new quadrupole LC/MS detector is claimed to be the smallest available for HPLC, according to Thermo.