An automated and self-cleaning nano liquid chromatography mass spectrometry platform featuring an open tubular multi-hole crystal fiber solid phase extraction column and an open tubular separation column

An open tubular (OT) sample preparation/separation platform was developed. A multi-channel polymer layer open tubular (mPLOT) solid phase extraction (SPE) column was prepared by wall-coating the 126 channels (8μm inner diameter (ID) each) of a crystal fiber capillary with an organic polymer, namely poly(styrene-co-octadecene-co-divinylbenzene) (PS-OD-DVB). The mPLOT SPE was coupled on-line with a 10μm×2m poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) (PS-DVB) OT liquid chromatography column with nanospray mass spectrometry (OTLC-MS). Compared to using monolithic/particle-packed SPEs, mPLOT-SPE-OTLC allowed both fast loading and sufficient refocusing on the OT analytical column of small model compounds (su…