CAREER: Development of a High Efficiency Mass Spectrometry System

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The Analytical & Surface Chemistry Program supports this CAREER award to Professor Zheng Ouyang at Purdue University to explore new instrumentation configurations for mass analysis. Theoretical modeling, numeric simulation, and experimental characterization are used to develop methods and devices for high efficiency ion transfer and mass analysis, challenging the sensitivity limitations of commercial instruments. Instrumentation improvements also target miniaturization of mass spectrometers. Technologies developed will potentially result in significant increases in sensitivity, enabling new approaches to the most challenging problems in biological science, where ultra high sensitivity is required to analyze samples available only in extremely small amounts.This work interfaces with an Analytical Instrumentation Development (AID) Training Program which encourages educational development based on instrumentation prototyping and research. Students with different backgrounds work together to develop prototype instruments based on new analytical technology. Derived instruments are provided to outside end-users for testing and development of applications. The resulting integration of education with research illustrates the transition of learning to real problem solving and provides a test of a new model for training young instrumentalists for analytical instrumentation research. Mechanisms of building a self-sustainable training program will be explored.