Resolving power (X/ΔX) is a common figure of merit used to compare various separation techniques and it is often used synonymously with resolution in mass spectrometry. In many cases the resolving power is used to try to compare across different separation platforms, for example determining the number of theoretical plates in a separation system. The typical assumption is that higher resolving powers correlate with better resolution between peaks and higher peak capacities. While this is generally true for separations performed in time, e.g. column chromatography and drift ion mobility, differential ion mobility spectrometry (DIMS) separates ions in space, not time. A practical implication of this is that analytes may be lost from the analytical separation space in DIMS when conditions are changed to increase resolving power. Thus, using resolving power to compare DIMS with other techniques, and even other DIMS experiments, may lead to erroneous inferences. In this presentation experiments will be discussed in which the DIMS resolving power can be as high as 1700, without significantly increasing the separation between analyte peaks. Experiments showing the loss of analytes from the analytical separation space will also presented.

Resolving power in differential ion mobility spectrometry: What does it really mean

249th National Meeting (2015)

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