PHOTONIS USA to Showcase DART® Ion Mobility Spectrometer at Pittcon 2013

PHOTONIS USA, a leading electro-optic manufacturer, introduces the DART® Ion Mobility Spectrometer, designed for simplified, fast analysis of solids or liquids to easily detect contaminants or qualify material. It can be used in homeland security, pharmaceutical or laboratory applications. The product will be on display at Pittcon, March 18-21, in Philadelphia, PA, in PHOTONIS’ booth #1018.

The DART® Ion Mobility Spectrometer provides sample analysis in a two stage IMS configuration. High resolving power (64-150) is achieved using PHOTONIS patented Resistive Glass technology which is currently used in other IMS applications, and a new photo-etched ion gate that provides the rapid pulsing necessary to produce spectra with high resolving power. The sample inlet utilizes IonSense’s patented Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART®) technology to ionize solid, liquid and gas phase analytes with no special sample preparation. The new DART® Ion Mobility Spectrometer is ideal for applications where simplicity, accuracy and speed are required, such as product or food safety, composition analysis and environmental control.

The new DART® Ion Mobility Spectrometer is the result of a joint development effort between PHOTONIS USA and IonSense, Inc. to mutually leverage their core strengths in collaboration with researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology. IonSense President and CEO Brian Musselman noted, “We were impressed by work from Prof. Facundo Fernandez's group at Georgia Tech demonstrating the use of PHOTONIS Resistive Glass products for IMS construction, inspiring us to jointly create a Resistive Glass DART IMS product with the best of both technologies.” He added, “Lower gas temperatures and using the DART to produce mainly intact protonated molecules for analysis shows promise as a means to simplify the IMS spectra.”

IonSense is a leader in analytical tools for food and drug safety, and has developed a series of easy-to-use, low-cost DART® source products aimed at routine or specific analysis. PHOTONIS USA is the industry leader in mass spectrometer sensors and holds several patents on its Resistive Glass products, including one for an ion mobility spectrometer that features this technology.