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Use our mass spectroscopy service

Find out about the mass spectrometry service and how it could help your research.

What mass spectroscopy is and the equipment we offer

An overview of mass spectroscopy and information about the bookable equipment on campus.


A mass spectrometer

Mass spectrometry is a sensitive technique used to identify and quantify compounds based on their mass, charge, structure and elemental composition.

It has many applications including:

  • organic and inorganic synthesis product confirmation
  • protein identification
  • impurity profiling
  • identification of unknowns
  • reaction monitoring
  • environmental screening

Our equipment

Automated Agilent QTOF (Walkup)

The Automated Agilent QTOF is used with HPLC (4 chromatography columns) for routine small molecule, peptide and intact protein analysis.

Agilent GC-MSD

The Agilent GC-MSD is equipped with Thermal Desorption for volatile and semi-volatile organic compound (VOC, sVOC) gas chromatographic analysis. Read more about the Agilent GC-MSD.

Bruker MaXis HD ESI-QTOF mass spectrometer

The Bruker MaXis HD ESI-QTOF mass spectrometer is used for high mass accuracy and is coupled to a Thermo Scientific Dionex Ultra High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) unit. ESI and APCI ionisation sources are available.

The HD ESI-QTOF can also be coupled to a syringe driver to analyse hard-to-ionise, partially air- and moisture-sensitive samples. In addition, there is also the direct probe analysis for use with hard-to-dissolve, hard-to-ionise, partially air- and moisture-sensitive samples.

Shimadzu Axima Performance MALDI-TOF/TOF

The Shimadzu Axima Performance MALDI-TOF/TOF has an ID plus module for analysing compounds requiring soft ionisation including polymers, large fragile molecules, proteins and peptides. With the additional ID plus modules and SARAMIS database, this instrument can also perform microbial ID for bacteria and yeast.

Water Cyclic IMS coupled with UHPLC with PDA

This novel mass spectrometer can separate ions by their mass and mobility using the Collisional Cross Section (CCS) of an ion. This has the potential to identify and quantify small molecules, triglycerides, lipids, proteins and peptides, and is particularly useful for isomers.

Agilent LC-MS 1260 Infinite

The Agilent LC-MS 1260 Infinite has electrospray ionisation, single quadrupole and DAD detector. It will also give you a mass spectrum of your compounds, suitable for quantitative work, or basic identification. Suitable for PFAS work.

Internal users

If you're a University member of staff or a student, you can find out more on our Moodle pages.

Contact us

If you have any questions about the Mass Spectroscopy equipment or would like to book time with it, please get in touch.