Experimental Section Template and Acknowledgements

Acknowledgement of NSF Support - Instrument Purchase

"Purchase of the Waters GCT mass spectrometer used to obtain results included in this publication was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CHE 0077960."

"Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation."

Acknowledgement of CIF Staff Assistance

"We wish to thank ISU Chemical Instrumentation Facility staff members <insert name(s) here> for training and assistance pertaining to the Waters GCT GCMS results included in this publication."

 "Experimental Section" Information

The GCT GCMS is an orthogonal time-of-flight mass spectrometer from Waters Inc., Milford, MA.  The system also includes a model 6890 GC from Agilent, Santa Clara, CA, which is equipped with a model 7683 Autoinjector from Agilent.  The amount of additional experimental detail necessary will depend upon whether you are preparing a manuscript, a poster, a presentation, or including the information in your thesis. 

Every data file acquired with MassLynx has an associated logfile with many of the relevant parameters used for the acquisition.  This logfile can be accessed through the Chromatogram data browser.  For GCMS measurements, typical information might include:

  • MS Section (Typical)
  • Ionization mode:   EI (+)
  • Electron energy:  70 eV
  • Source temp:  150 C
  • Trap current:  100 microamps
  • Scan range:  45 to 650 Daltons
  • Scan rate: 0.5 sec / scan (2 scans / sec)
  • Resolution: 6000
  • Calibrant:  2,4,6-Tris(trifluoro-methyl)-1,3,5-triazine (METRI)
  • GC Section (Typical)
  • Column: DB-5 MS, 30 m x 0.25 mm i.d. x 0.25 micron film thickness
  • Carrier gas: helium (UHP Plus grade, 99.9995% purity)
  • Carrier gas flow: 1.0 ml / min, constant flow mode
  • Injector mode: split/splitless in 50:1 split mode
  • Injector temp:  260 C
  • Injection volume: 1 microliter
  • Temperature program: 70 C (4 min); raised to 280 C at 15 degrees/min; 5 minute hold at 280 C
  • Temp. pgrm. shorthand: 70(4) -> 280/15 (5)
  • Data Processing (Typical)
  • Software: MassLynx 4.0 (Waters)
  • Libraries: Wiley 7th Edition (July 2000); NIST 2011 (June 2011)