Open University research fellow, Geraint Morgan, shares how SIFT-MS has enabled a wide range of analytic chemistry research in the physics department and planetary science studies. He opens up about how their Syft Tracer "opens up new ways of looking at samples" such as aldehydes and overcomes limitations of traditional methodologies in this Q&A session with Syft.
What gap did you have in your workflow that led to you being open to a new technology like SIFT-MS?
The SIFT-MS was an ideal way of looking at the very volatile species, the C1 to C6 alcohols, aldehydes keytones in a very small amount of sample. One the thing about meteorites is they're very precious, and so we only had about 15 milligrams of sample available for analysis. It's the sensitivity and the ability to be able to then heat samples and then transfer them directly into the Syft that was really exciting in terms of applying this new technique to this area.
What impressed you most about the capabilities of SIFT-MS when you evaluated it as an option for your organization?
There's several things about the SIFT-MS that attracted me. One is the sensitivity; the ability to look at samples in near real time at very low levels. To be able to process and then analyze numerous samples quickly is also another big benefit. The SIFT-MS is very quick in terms of either targeted, or even untargeted analysis.
It's also a very robust system. It's very easy to use. The ability to look at species such as for aldehyde and other aldehydes that are traditionally very difficult to do with techniques such as GCMS. So, really it opens up a whole new range of compounds that would be very difficult to do with traditional analytical techniques. The ability to analyze samples with limited sample prep.
The sensitivity and the speed of analysis will allow us to partner with new collaborators, both internally, and also externally to the organization. But where the SIFT-MS really comes in is things like aldehydes, where traditionally that's very expensive and very slow to do those analyses properly. So, the near real time measurements we can do with the SIFT-MS.
Plus, we've coupled it now with an autosampler, which means we can, in principle, do over 200 samples in one day. Using the autosampler method. Really opens up the ability to look at lots of samples quickly, but with high sensitivity.
What do you see as the biggest strengths of SIFT-MS?
The other experience we had was we took the system across the country four hours, plus journey time, and yet it was working with under an hour, switching it back on again.
The support has been excellent. I'd certainly consider another’s system. To commercial opportunity for this I growing. I would certainly recommend sift to my colleagues. In fact, I do quite often. it opens up new ways of looking at samples and generating large data sets relatively quickly.
Watch the full testimonial here.