Exum Instruments and Edge Scientific Partner to Distribute Exum’s LALI-TOF-MS Technology in Canada

Analytical instrument manufacturer Exum Instruments is partnering with Edge Scientific, a Canadian distributor of scientific instruments to distribute Exum’s products more widely in North America, according to a press release (1). Exum’s first technology is the Massbox, which is a laser ablation laser ionization time of flight mass spectrometer (LALI-TOF-MS) for analyzing solid samples.

By joining forces, both companies aim to leverage each other's deep expertise in analytical instruments to drive innovation, lower the operational costs of running a typical laboratory, and provide new capabilities, according to the press release. The partnership will allow Exum Instruments to promote the MassBox technology to clients in Canada, with Edge Scientific acting as a reseller. The partnership between Exum Instruments and Edge Scientific, the press release states, represents a strategic opportunity to offer trace-level quantitative analysis, elemental mapping, and depth profiling to Canadian researchers and industrial facilities.

Sample vial on black paper with chemical formula | Image Credit: © rueangwit - stock.adobe.com

“From my background in cosmochemistry, I got to utilize nearly every analytical instrument in the field. There’s a reason why it takes two PhD chemists minimum to run a lab,” said Jeff Williams, the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief technology officer (CTO) of Exum Instruments in the press release. “The scientific instrumentation market is 20 years behind. Exum, and the Massbox, are here to bring analytical instrumentation into the modern age and accelerate the development of new materials and products. I am excited and proud for Edge Scientific to represent us and help us grow across various research areas and different market segments. Their reputation for representing quality products and more importantly quality service and support were key factors in choosing them to carry our brand and our technology.

“We founded Edge Scientific to get the right analytical instruments into the hands of the right researchers,” said Stephen Wood, Edge Scientific President. “This means we are constantly evaluating the latest innovations coming into the market. When we heard about the Massbox, we understood the value of its capabilities and saw immediate opportunity to take it to market, particular for mining, lithium-ion battery, and nuclear applications in Canada.”

TOF-MS is one approach to capturing a broad molecular weight range of signals associated with polar and nonpolar compounds in a single sample. This method uses an electric field to accelerate ions to the same potential. The ions advance to the detector through a “flight” tube where the time to reach the detector is related to the mass of the ion. Advantages of using TOF for broad spectrum analysis includes increased mass accuracy and mass resolution, greater sensitivity, rapid acquisition, and increased dynamic range when profiling over a broad molecular weight range (2). By incorporating their patented LALI ionization source, which utilizes one laser to remove material from a solid sample, and a second laser to subsequently ionize neutrals, many of the elemental fractionation, spectral interferences, and matrix effects that plague other techniques are removed, according to Massbox page on the Exum website (3). Furthermore, the wavelength and power of the first laser can be selected to accommodate both ablations for inorganic elemental analysis and desorption, for organic analysis.

References

1. Exum Industries press release. https://app.hubspot.com/documents/7482705/view/810029476?accessId=d4ca6d

2. Costantino, A.G.; Altomare, C.; Stella, A. “ Issues of False Negative Results in Toxicology: Difficult in Detecting Certain Drugs and Issues with Detection of Synthetic Cathinone (Bath Salts), Synthetic Cannabinoids (Spice), and Other New Psychoactive Substances,” in Accurate Results in the Clinical Laboratory, 2nd Ed., Dasgupta, A. and Sepulveda, J. L., Editors. Elsevier, 2019, p. 257–270. DOI:10.1016/B978-0-12-813776-5.00016-9:

3. Massbox webpage. https://www.exuminstruments.com/massbox