Bruker’s SolariX XR

Bruker’s new SolariX XR mass spectrometer takes resolving power to a new level. Commercial instruments typically achieve resolving power of well below 1 million. For this new Fourier transform mass spectrometer, the company quotes an achievable resolving power of 10 million. For more routine analyses with faster (1 second) acquisition times, the system achieves resolving power of 650,000 at a mass-to-charge ratio of 400. Such high resolving power is made possible by a new ion-trapping cell called ParaCell, based on a design by Evgeny N. Nikolaev, head of the Laboratory for Mass Spectrometry of Biomacromolecules at the Institute of Biochemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences. The ParaCell stabilizes the ion cyclotron resonance signal over a broad mass range. The instrument features a dual-source ion funnel that allows the system to switch between electrospray and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) in 5 seconds. The instrument is available with 7-, 9.4-, 12-, or 15-tesla magnets. The high resolution makes it possible to easily determine the isotopic composition of samples. Bruker also announced new quadrupole time-of-flight and triple-quadrupole instruments, the Impact HD and the EVOQ Elite ER, ­respectively.