Column Heater Solutions for Thermo Scientific Easy-Spray and Nanospray Flex Ion Sources

It is well known that nano/micro flow chromatography columns are best placed close to the orifice of your mass spectrometer to avoid any post-column dead volumes causing peak broadening. It is also well known that temperature control will, not only reduce back pressure, but also increase reproducibility of your chromatographic experiment.

When using Thermo Scientific™ Orbitrap™ or Quadrupole based mass spectrometers there is a choice of two types of Ion Sources suitable for nanoSpray applications, namely the Nanospray Flex™ Series and EASY-Spray™ model. With products from Phoenix S&T (PST), MS Wil developed a kit to fit your columns seamlessly on one of these Ion Sources.

Phoenix S&T Butterfly column heaters are being used in many proteomics laboratories, as they are easy to use and fit many different constellations of columns, transfer lines and liquid junctions. The Butterfly column heater is a very flexible envelope that allows for a variety of connections to be included in the column heater (as shown in Figure 1). This allows for the unions to be included in the temperature controlled area. An electricity isolating film will protect the column and grounding union from making a non-insulating connection with the heater plates of the column heater.

Below you find a description on how these heaters work together with the different Thermo Ion Sources (EASY-Spray and Nanospray Flex), and at the end of this article you will find an overview of the different part numbers involved.

Butterfly Column Heater on an EASY-Spray Ion Source

The EASY-Spray source is developed for ease of use and being a closed source, it provides an always stable positioning of the spray needle in relation to the MS-orifice. To increase ease of use the EASY-Spray source is also equipped with a column heater controller, used to control the temperature in the EASY-Spray column. Some years ago PST found a way to make use of this inbuild column heater control to be used for alternative column heaters, like the Butterfly Column Heater, opening a world of flexibility in the use of EASY-Spray sources. The main benefit versus the standard solutions is the ability to replace the emitter with a new one when it has stopped working or to choose different dimensions when changing flow-rates.

When connecting a column to an EASY-Spray Adapter one may choose to use the column heater or not, of course it is highly recommended to use temperature control in order to maintain a stable temperature in your column. When an inbuild column heater in the LC system is used, then no column heater is needed on the Ion Source.

When using a Phoenix S&T Butterfly column heater, purposely build to be controlled by the EASY-Spray Source, the column heater is simply added to the installation. The schematic in the figure below (Figure 2) shows set-up that will allow for a stable connection of a capillary column, mounted in a Butterfly Column Heater, by either using the PepSep EASY-Spray Adapter with integrated Liquid Junction Emitter or the PST EASY-Spray Adapter and a Fused Silica Emitter (a column with integrated emitter may also be used).

The PepSep and PST EASY-Spray Adapter will fit into the EASY-Spray Column slot of the EASY-Spray Source, where it will connect to the High Voltage (HV) power supply just like a regular EASY-Spray Column. With the PST Easy-Spray Adapter the HV is then transferred to a HV-Cable, which is connected to a Liquid Junction of choice. The PST Liquid Junction is molded into a polymer housing to avoid unwanted exposure of the High Voltage and the HV-Cable is connected to the housing using a magnetic coupling, allowing it to be easily released if needed.

The column heater can be mounted on the EASY-Spray source using the MS Wil Easy-Spray mounting bracket. A picture of the PST Butterfly column heater on the EASY-Spray mounting bracket is shown in the figure below (Figure 3).

Butterfly Column Heater on a NanoSpray Flex Ion Source

In contrary to the EASY-Spray Sources described in the previous section, the Nanospray Flex Sources are designed to provide flexibility to the user. Columns are generally mounted on the DirectJunction, using the PST Butterfly column heater a slightly different set-up is needed, as depicted in Figure 4. The set-up is very similar to the EASY-Spray one, however, in this case a PepSep Sprayer designed for the Flex source is used and the column heater is controlled by the PST Column Heater Controller (see Figure 7). With the Nanospray Flex Ion Source a separate- or integrated emitter can also be used with the Butterfly Column Heater.

To mount the Butterfly column heater, MS Wil has designed a separated mounting bracket that fits on the aluminum rail to the side of the XYZ-manipulator as shown in Figure 5. The set-up may be completed with a PST Liquid Junction purposely made to be mounted on the Column rail of the DirectJunction as shown in Figure 6. This Liquid Junction can be mounted both at the emitter side or at the entrance of the nanoLC Column.

Product Number & Specifications:

EASY-Spray Sources:

NanoSpray Flex Sources:

Left with any further questions or comments? Please don’t hesitate to contact us by mail (sales@mswil.com).