LC/MS: A Practical User's Guide

Marvin C. McMaster

ot everyone is in the situation of having a liquid chromatograph / mass spectrometer turn up in their lab. But if you do, there's a lot of basic stuff you need to learn fast. This short and vastly overpriced book, written by an LC/MS tech support guy, is designed to teach users rudimentary information they need to know before they're allowed to go near the mass spec. That way, they know precisely what part they're about to break. This is the book to read if you know nothing about HPLC or mass spectrometry, before you start on the operating manuals.

While there's some practical information in this book, it will be mostly review for anyone with any experience with HPLC or mass spec. The comments about HPLC are useful for those running 4.6-mm i.d. columns, but most people using mass spectrometry have probably switched to nano-LC and nanospray. Nanospray uses 50- or 75-micron silica capillaries, and doesn't require splitters which throw most of your sample away at the detector. Most of the suggestions in this book, like filtering your sample, simply won't work on these more modern systems, where your sample is often only a couple of microliters.

The discussion of mass spectrometers is fairly general and of limited use even for beginners. McMaster tends to drift into the uses of different types of mass spectrometry, and in so doing misses an opportunity to explain how to really maintain the mass spec. That would have made this a truly useful book.

The book also comes with a CD that contains a PowerPoint presentation.