Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) today introduced the new Xevo™ TQ Absolute system, the most sensitive and compact benchtop tandem mass spec in its class.ⁱ

Waters’ newest high-performance mass spectrometer is up to 15X more sensitive for quantifying negatively ionizing compounds than its predecessorⁱⁱ and is 45% smaller and uses up to 50% less electricity and gas supply than other high-performance tandem quadrupole mass spectrometers available on the market.ⁱⁱⁱ The Xevo TQ Absolute is designed to help pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and environmental analytical laboratories meet regulations requiring trace-level quantitative mass spectrometry analyses for a broad set of applications.

“The Xevo TQ Absolute is for laboratories looking for industry-leading quantitative sensitivity, accuracy, reproducibility, efficiency and sustainability,” said Jon Pratt, Waters Division Senior Vice President, Waters Corporation. “It offers more analytical firepower in a much smaller footprint than any other mass spec in its class, reaches exceptionally low limits of quantitation, and aids laboratory managers to best optimize their equipment utilization and analytical output.”

For optimal performance, Waters pairs the Xevo TQ Absolute mass spectrometer with Waters’ ACQUITY™ Premier UPLC System with MaxPeak™ HPS technology which eliminates non-specific adsorption of compounds containing phosphate and/or carboxylate groups and improves their recovery. Together, this integrated LC-MS/MS system is designed to drive the limits of quantitation to exceptionally low levels for many applications including:

• Quantifying regulated impurities in drug products
• Performing oligonucleotide bioanalytical assays
• Measuring concentrations of endogenous metabolites in large cohort clinical studies
• Quantifying residues and contaminants in food and environmental samples
• Measuring low-level drugs and toxicants in physiological matrices
• Detecting trace-level leachables from food packaging

The Xevo TQ Absolute incorporates thoughtful design features that enable consistent and reproducible analyses, allowing labs to maintain performance and uptime for longer periods in between routine cleaning and service intervals. This is achieved with new guidance on optimal probe positioning for both sensitivity and robustness and a source shield that helps minimize source contamination by the sample matrix or mobile phase salts.

The Xevo TQ Absolute is optimized for use with the waters_connect™ software platform and is also compatible with Waters MassLynx™ mass spectrometry software. For laboratories painstakingly reviewing the results from large numbers of samples, or those quantifying hundreds of small molecule components and contaminants in a single run, the MS Quan app on waters_connect and its unique Exception Focused Review (XFR) functionality, lets scientists review data in up to half the time it used to take them^iv.

Worldwide customer shipments of the Xevo TQ Absolute are expected to commence in May.