Ultra High Pressure Liquid Chromatography System (uHPLC) Shimadzu, from the NEXERA series, coupled to a triple quadrupole mass spectrometry detector model LCMS-8050 for tandem masses (QqQ-MS / MS). The uHPLC equipment allows to accelerate the procedures of liquid chromatography, increase productivity and reduce the consumption of mobile phase reducing costs and losses, with the consequent advantages in the development of analytical processes in the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic fields. The coupling of this liquid chromatograph to a high-speed scanning QqQ mass spectrometry detector (> 15,000 umas / s) allows the development of highly robust and reproducible methods, reducing analysis times compared to conventional methods, due to the high currents of generated ions, and achieve high sensitivity in MRM (multiple reaction monitoring) mode.

The sensitivity of this equipment allows to reach a limit of detection of the order of picogram in MRM mode, which makes it especially suitable for the quantitative analysis of all types of molecules: organic compounds, metabolites, tryptic peptides, additives, drugs, pesticides, etc. On the other hand, this equipment also offers resolutions below the mass unit (R <0.7 FWHM) for the identification of compounds, in addition to the possibility of tandem mass production for structural analysis. Among the multiple applications of this equipment are:

• Nanotechnology, for evaluation of the loading and unloading of compounds in nanofibers and nanoparticles.
• Cosmetic industry: identification and quantification of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), preservatives, phospholipid profile, etc.
• Food safety: determination of residual pesticides in botanical extracts, quantification of antibiotic metabolites in food samples, water quality and toxicological analysis.
• Metabolomics: highly sensitive quantification of drug and xenobiotic metabolites.
• Proteomics: identification of peptides, especially suitable for quantitative studies of gene expression and quantitative proteomics (ICAT, iTRAQ, SILAC).

This equipment has been acquired thanks to an intervention co-financiated by the European Union through the Programa Operativo del Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional(FEDER) from the Comunitat Valenciana 2014-2020 (PROJECT: IDIFEDER2018/020).

Contact: María Losada Echeberría (e-mail: ;telephone: 966 65 84 70)