If you use any of our source designs for your research, please refer to it as the UWPR nanospray source or UWPR NSI source and reference our website. Thanks!

Third-party products appear on this page as suggestions only. They do not constitute an endorsement by the UWPR.

Design and features

The UWPR nanospray source was first designed in 2007 to be used on Thermo Fisher instruments (LTQ, LTQ-Orbitrap XL, and TSQ). Over the years the flexible design has been modified, and today it fits all the Thermo instruments, including the Exploris series, the Astral series, and the Tribrid series.

The UWPR NSI source offers all the benefits and features of commercial NSI sources:

  • Lower flow rates: no drying gas or thermal heating is required, and sensitivity is increased compared to higher flow ESI
  • Higher tolerance to a wide variety of liquid compositions than conventional ESI

In addition, this NSI source offers significant improvements over most commercial sources:

  • Great flexibility: it accommodates columns of all lengths, in-house packed or commercial columns, as well as configurations with traps, spray tips, etc.
  • The source can be customized to your specific needs, e.g. mounting of cameras, LED lights, or anything else you can think of
  • It can be used in conjunction with the Thermo NSI probes (static, dynamic, and packed tip probes)
  • The open design allows leaks to be detected immediately
  • Significantly lower cost: the parts list and assembly instructions are free to download, allowing you to build the NSI source at a fraction of the cost of commercial sources
  • All the parts are commercially available

We currently use the NSI source on all of our Thermo instruments.

An alternative for using your own columns with the Thermo EASY-Spray source is the Jailbreak Column Heater from Phoenix S&T.

Source design documents

3D printed parts

When using stainless steel VHP fittings, we use a 3D printed carrier to prevent arcing. The zip files below contain the eMachineShop CAD files and the Ender 3 S1 Pro (Creality) project and gcode files.

The holder below is designed to be used with the Thermo EASY-Spray Nano Emitter (ES993).

Images

UWPR NSI source on the Fusion with trap and 30 cm analytical column


UWPR NSI source on the QExactive Plus with trap, 30 cm analytical column, and optional LED light



UWPR NSI source on the LTQ-Orbitrap XL



UWPR NSI source on the TSQ Vantage


UWPR NSI source