When it comes to the differentiation of various ions generated in an inductively coupled plasma, the quadrupole is still the default option due to its robust nature and availability. Over the past years the development of time-of-flight (TOF) mass analysers have proven to excel at some tasks where the quadrupole falls short. Especially for the analysis of multiple isotopes in fast transient signals a TOF is essential. Furthermore, due to the quasi-simultaneous detection, the isotope ratios are typically better when compared to a quadrupole. On the other hand, the identification of isotopes is purely done by the relatively high resolution of the TOF, but this cannot compete with the mass shifting capabilities to identify heavily interfered isotopes using a triple quadrupole.

Herein we present the capabilities of an instrument which can do both mass shifting but also detection of full mass spectra quasi-simultaneously. In order to achieve this, a quadrupole is followed by a reaction cell and finally the differentiation of ions is achieved using a TOF. Within this poster, data will be shown acquired using this quad-cell-TOF design and advantages for two main applications (ratios of heavily interfered isotopes and investigation of reaction cell chemistry) will be discussed.