Equipments

The lab is equipped with high-end mass spectrometers and chromatographic systems.

Rouen site:

• A Fourier-Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FTICR) Mass Spectrometer (Bruker, SolariX XR) superconducting magnet equipped with most of the atmospheric pressure ion sources (ESI, APCI, APPI, APGC…) and a (MA)LDI ion source.

This instrument affords unsurpassed resolution and mass accuracy for the analysis of complex matrices. The separation of the compounds of interest is based on their m/z ratios. The analysis of such complex matrices can be performed either by directly injecting the sample without any previous separation (so-called direct infusion) or hyphenated to chromatographic systems (LC, GC, GPC, SFC…) for on-line separation and detection.

• A trapped ion mobility – mass spectrometer (TIMS TOF Flex) equipped with most of the available atmospheric pressure ion sources and a (MA)LDI ion source

This instrument affords a bidimensional separation: based on m/z ratios measured with a high resolution Time-of-Flight (ToF) analyzer and based on the size and shape of the ions with the ion mobility cell, thus providing both molecular and structural informations about the compounds of interest. The use of (MA)LDI allows additionaly a spatial dimension to analyses.

• An ion mobility – mass spectrometer (Waters, Synapt G2) equipped with most of the available atmospheric pressure ion sources

This instrument affords a bidimensional separation: based on m/z ratios measured with a high resolution Time-of-Flight (ToF) analyzer and based on the size and shape of the ions with the ion mobility cell, thus providing both molecular and structural informations about the compounds of interest.

• A gas chromatography – time of flight mass spectrometer (Jeol AccuTOF 4G GC-TOF) equipped with EI, CI and FI ionization sources

This instrument also affords a bidimensional separation, based on the retention times of the compounds during the gas chromatographic analysis and the m/z ratios measured with the ToF analyzer.

Pau site:

• An Inductively Coupled Plasma-High Resolution (ICP-HRMS) Mass Spectrometer (Element XR, ThermoFisher Scientific)

This instrument provides information about the elementary contents within the matrices of interest, allowing the separation and the quantification of isotopes (³²S, ⁵¹V…) based on their m/z ratios. Additional separation of the complex matrices can be performed by on-line GPC hyphenated to the ICP-HRMS leading to valuable information about the size of the metal- or sulfur- containing complexes. Two other chromatographic systems are also available for hyphenation, including one SFC system and one Pyr-GC system.

• A High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) – Laser ablation system hyphenated to an ICP-MS

This instrument is used for solid samples analysis. The separation thanks to HPTLC allows eluting the compounds as a function of their polarity that are then submitted to laser ablation and detected/quantified by the ICP-MS system.

TotalEnergies sites:

The Molecular Separation & Identification Services of TRTG/TRTF sites (Le Havre, France and Feluy, Belgium) are composed of different labs: the liquid chromatography lab, the gas chromatography lab and the mass spectrometry lab.

• Liquid Chromatography lab

Different instruments can be found within the Liquid Chromatography lab such as ionic chromatography (IC-ECD or MS for cations, IC/ICE-ECD for anions…), high-pressure liquid chromatographic systems coupled to most of usual detectors (HPLC-RI, RPLC-RI&UV, HPLC-UV&ELSD, HPLC-UV&CAD…), high pressure thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) coupled to UV, Flash chromatography (for preparative SAR purposes) and APC-RI&UV for GPC and APC separations.

• Gas Chromatography lab

The gas chromatography lab is also composed of several chromatographic systems dedicated to SimDis (Simulated Distillation) for low-temperature products, middle-temperature products and high-temperature products as well as specific systems for the distillation of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur species. A reformulyzer is available for PIONA analysis (light products). Besides, other gas chromatography systems can be found either in one dimension configuration (GC) or in comprehensive two-dimensional configuration (GC×GC) coupled to most of detectors such as FID, NCD, SCD and VUV for specific applications.

• Mass spectrometry lab

Several mass spectrometers are available at TRTG, including one GC-QQQ (Shimadzu) and one GC-QToF (Agilent) providing either quantification of the species of interest (QQQ using SIM and MRM modes) or molecular identification of unknown species thanks to exact masses measurements (QToF).

Finally, an hybrid instrument (SYNAPT G2-Si, Waters) is also installed within the lab for ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMMS) measurements. This instrument is used either in direct infusion mode or hyphenated to several systems such as LC, UPC², APGC or glove box.

MAGLAB site:

The MAGLAB is based in Tallahassee, Florida (USA). Several mass spectrometers, and especially FT-ICR MS instruments, are available in this lab including for example two 9.4T instruments and one 14.5T instrument. All instruments can be used with different ionization sources such as APCI, AP/LIAD-CI, APPI and ESI as well as MALDI ion source for one of the 9.4T instrument. Moreover, different fragmentation techniques can also be used with the passively shielded 9.4T for structural purposes like CID, IRMPD and tandem MS/MS or CID, ECD, ETD and tandem MS/MS for the 14.5T instrument.

In this lab, there is also a 21T instrument that is the world’s highest field, persistent, superconducting magnet suitable for FT-ICR MS analysis. This instrument can be used with APCI, AP/LIAD-CI, APPI and ESI ion sources. As regards the fragmentation techniques, CID, ECD, ETD or tandem MS/MS can be applied.