Speaker: Asher Newsome, Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute

Topic: Ambient Sampling and Ionization for Mass Spectrometry of Museum Objects and Materials

Date: Monday, January 14, 2019

Time: 6:15 pm Dinner, 7:15 pm Presentation

Location: Shimadzu Scientific Instruments, Inc. Training Center 7100 Riverwood Drive, Columbia, MD 21046 (Directions)

Dinner: Please RSVP to Yan Wang (yanwang@umd.edu) by Friday, January 11th if you will be attending the dinner.

Abstract: Over thirty years after the creation of an atmospheric pressure ionization source for mass spectrometry, development of ambient sampling and ionization sources for use without chromatography exploded beginning in 2004. Whether a given technique moves from academia to industry or follows some other path, oftentimes a design originally intended to be a general-purpose analytical MS tool – versatile, based on fundamental principles, relatively open-source – becomes increasingly engineered toward niche applications, particularly the biomedical and defense markets. With some 150 million objects (including living specimens) in its collection that have been selected for conservation and are available for study, the interests of the Smithsonian Institution fill every niche. The versatility, modularity, and throughput of our mass spectrometry systems are of the utmost concern. A varied selection of our recent projects using ambient ionization, direct analysis in real time (DART), and solid phase microextraction (SPME) to analyze ancient, historic, and modern objects is presented, as well as some of our instrumental modifications to accommodate the particular concerns of a museum.