Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today introduced the Agilent 6540 Ultra- High-Definition (UHD) Accurate-Mass Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (Q-TOF) liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) system. This benchtop system offers superior data quality and advanced analytical capabilities, enabling researchers to profile, identify, characterize and quantify low molecular-weight compounds and biomolecules with greater confidence.
The Agilent 6540 Q-TOF is by far the highest-performing benchtop Q-TOF on the market, delivering much better performance than comparable Q-TOF products without the inherent trade-offs in speed, dynamic range, isotopic fidelity and mass range that are required by orbitrap-based systems. Innovative Ion Beam Compression (IBC) and Enhanced Mirror Technology (EMT) produce ultra-high-definition mass accuracy and mass resolution while maintaining a benchtop format.
"While others have pursued a 'bigger must be better' approach to TOF flight tube development, Agilent has used advanced engineering to dramatically improve performance and maintain a benchtop-instrument format." said Ken Miller, Agilent senior global marketing director for LC/MS. "We've achieved huge gains in mass accuracy and resolution while maintaining our industry-leading sensitivity and dynamic range. And the system can run fast to generate accurate mass MS and MS/MS data for UHPLC analyses without the resolution loss suffered by orbitraps. This is the perfect system for state-of-the-art qualitative analysis in support of proteomic, metabolomic or non-targeted food safety and environmental studies."
6540 UHD Q-TOF System Features
The new 6540 UHD Q-TOF delivers industry-leading performance in the most important categories:
- Agilent Jet Stream thermal-gradient-focusing technology provides high femtogram MS/MS sensitivity and identification of trace-level compounds;
- up to 500 ppb mass accuracy improves confidence and reduces false positives;
- fast data acquisition rates of up to 20 spectra/second ensure maximum compatibility with Agilent 1290 UHPLC and high-throughput methods;
- up to five orders of in-spectrum dynamic range improves detection of trace-level targets in the presence of high-abundance compounds;
- up to 40,000 mass resolution distinguishes target analytes from interferences; and
- high-definition isotopic fidelity confirms molecular formulas with greater confidence.
Agilent also offers application-specific software packages to take full advantage of this exceptional data quality to improve results from proteomics, metabolomics and common screening applications:
- NEW Mass Profiler Professional software for sophisticated differential analysis and profiling of complex sample sets;
- bioconfirm software for characterization and confirmation of intact protein and oligonucleotide molecules;
- METLIN Personal Database, a searchable metabolomics database of more than 23,000 endogenous metabolites and lipids;
- MassHunter Personal Compound databases for pesticides (more than 1,600 compounds) and forensic/ toxicology (more than 7,500 compounds);
- Spectrum Mill Workstation software for protein database searching; and
- MassHunter Metabolite ID software to identify drug metabolites.
The 6540 UHD Accurate Mass Q-TOFs can be ordered July 1.
About Agilent Technologies
Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world's premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 19,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $5.8 billion in fiscal year 2008. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at
www.agilent.com.
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